Award Winners - 2008
The 2008 Robin Clark Memorial Awards were presented by the Hon Lisa Neville MP, Minister for Community Services, at Federation Square on 9 September 2008.
Robin's Awards recognise exceptional contributions which improve the lives of vulnerable children and families in Victoria.
MAKING A DIFFERENCE WITH CHILDREN, YOUNG PEOPLE AND FAMILIES
Winners: Dr Peter Eastaugh, Consultant, General and Community Paediatrics, based in Shepparton and Mara Long, Department of Human Services
Highly Commended: Michelle Shipperlee, Department of Human Services and Carolyn Worth, South Eastern Centre Against Sexual Assault
INSPIRATIONAL LEADERSHIP IN THE FIELD
Winner: Sandie de Wolf, Berry Street
Highly Commended: John Bonnice, St Luke's Anglicare and Sue Medson, ex Goulburn Valley Family Care
Profile of Recipients
Winners: Making a Difference
Dr Peter Eastaugh
Dr Peter Eastaugh is a consultant paediatrician in the Shepparton area. For the past 25 years he has contributed to improved outcomes for vulnerable children at a level far over and above the clinical requirement of his professional role.
Peter has a remarkable presence in the Shepparton area. For him his work is a vocation, not a career. His particular strength is in the way he has gained acceptance in the community and engaged it to lead development of a collective response to child abuse prevention. As Peter puts it - he works to make the community own the problem. Before moving to Shepparton 25 years ago, Peter setup a free clinic for children in Fitzroy. In the process he lobbied local politicians, giving them no option but to support the initiative. Peter describes himself as an acute reactant. He sees a problem, goes for it and won't give up till he achieves the outcomes he wants.
Mara Long
Mara manages a team of eight staff in the Department's North West Region who are responsible for placement of children in out of home care, monitoring and support of placements and planning for the transition of children out of care or to alternative placement. She has been in this role for five years.
Mara ensures proactive and tight management of the busiest placement system in the State. She and her team are committed to delivering care that is responsive to individual clients' needs, and operates within available resources to achieve the best outcomes for children and young people. As a local CSO senior manager of residential and support services notes - Mara only meets about 5% of her clients but her knowledge of their background and her unshakable determination to place them in the right placement, rather than settling for the easiest option, is outstanding. Most of her clients never know the contribution Mara has made to their lives.
Highly Commended: Making a Difference
Michelle Shipperlee
Michelle has been a case support worker in the Department for 11 years - first at Northern Region and, since 2000, at Southern Region where she now is case support coordinator.
Case support is an integral and vital part of the child protection service. The main responsibility is enabling and supervising access between children, their parents and other family members, and alerting child protection workers to any issues of concern. In her role as case support coordinator, Michelle makes a great effort for each child to have one consistent case support worker. She sets herself and her team high standards - embracing the challenge of managing increased numbers of accesses and workers. A carer of three boys, who has worked long term with Michelle, says "the boys love her, they think she is the best worker they've had; she is fun to be with...she helps out a lot and they can talk to her, she cares."
Carolyn Worth
Carolyn has managed the South Eastern Centre Against Sexual Assault, or CASA, for 16 years. It is a 24 hour service for child and adult victims of sexual assault and family violence.
Until the 1990s, CASAs were predominately victim services. This narrow focus restricted CASAs' work with children, especially those who had been abused by other children in their family. Carolyn saw the need for service change - to better meet the needs of abused children, and to ensure that services for young people with sexually abusive behaviour were influenced by a victim perspective. Carolyn finally obtained funding to commence the Southern Sexual Abuse Counselling Prevention Program and then mentored and supported other CASAs to enable them to start working with young people with sexually abusive behaviours.
Winner: Inspirational Leadership
Sandie de Wolf
Since the early 1970's, Sandie has been making an outstanding contribution to the community services sector in Victoria. Sandie was appointed CEO of Berry Street in 1994 when it merged with Sutherland Homes.
She led the highly successful amalgamation and expansion of Berry Street into new regional and innovative practice areas. Berry Street is now the largest independent child and family service organisation in Victoria, with a commitment and capacity to work with those children, young people and families who have the most complex and challenging needs. Beyond Berry Street Sandie has advocated for public policy change and continuous improvement of the broader service system, through her participation on a range of significant Government and sector bodies - both in Victoria and nationally. Sandie is admired because she "walks the talk". On a personal level, Sandie is a great role model, particularly for other women. She shares her wisdom and knowledge generously, and helps people to build on their strengths. Sandie is known for her keen intellect, her directness, strategic nous, and determination.
Highly Commended: Inspirational Leadership
John Bonnice
John is the General Manager of Children, Youth and Family Services at St Luke's Anglicare. He oversees 150 staff operating a broad range of services. These include out of home care, high risk adolescent and infant programs, family services and Child First.
In a career over 30 years spanning youth justice and child protection, John has made a significant contribution to the sector in direct service delivery and service planning, development and management. John has been instrumental in establishing strong ‘wrap around' services for vulnerable youth, including a school based intervention service, a case management and referral centre for early school leavers, and a leaving care model now recognised as the State's lead model. John's work is driven always by his empathy and understanding, and underpinned by his research skills - he identifies peoples' needs, researches and designs a response, and then makes it happen at a local, regional, statewide and national level.
Sue Medson
Until earlier this year, Sue was Chief Executive Officer with Goulburn Valley Family Care - a role she held for eight years.
Family Care provides a range of services throughout the Goulburn Valley, with a strong focus on integrated family support services. Under Sue's leadership, Family Care developed as an agency and now is a key contributor to the professional network in Shepparton focused on protecting children. (This is the same very effective network Dr Peter Eastaugh is part of.) As well as directly contributing to the reform agenda as a member of the Ministerial Task Force, Sue has championed it at a local level. Family Care has been at the forefront of the reform strategies. From the beginning Sue committed to these, particularly the need for family service agencies to work in closer partnership with child protection.