The Sick Day That Changed Everything

After weeks of caring for ill children and finally catching the virus myself, I decided to take some me time. To rest. To be alone. To have a moment without little ones climbing over me and recover, I took a sick day.

They went to childcare, I went back to bed.

But like almost every parent across Australia - I’d been following the horrifying recent case out of Victoria. A case that may have left hundreds of innocent children victims of the worst kind of betrayal. The story popped up on my feed again, and this time, I couldn’t look away.

How did we get here? How did we become a country where someone so dangerous could slip through and cause such unthinkable harm to our children - the very people who will grow up to lead our communities, our workplaces, our nation?

Are my children safe? What is the reporting line for childcare workers? Is it working? My youngest was still learning to speak… Some of these victims still couldn’t! My heart just sank.

What broke me most was learning that a co-worker had noticed the signs early on. The warnings were there. And yet nothing was done.

That’s when my so-called “sick day” turned into something else entirely. Grief turned into motivation. Motivation into determination.

Someone has got to do something.

The thought I can’t shake, is the one that’s been echoing in me ever since.

Our children deserve a system that protects them. We know they deserve to have an ecosystem that gives them a voice and we know they deserve better.

So that’s why ChildSafe Registry was built.