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I have always had a very deep conviction that we should be sticking up for the rights of
all children, as we would say at Berry Street - have a good childhood and I’ve never lost
the sort of passion of making sure that they should have the sorts of things that children
should have. You know, safe, caring home life, a good education, opportunities for the future.
I was very surprised to learn that I had been nominated for the Robin Clark Awards. I was
surprised because I would not see myself as the sort of person who would normally be considered
for an award of this type. Well, initially, when I was thinking about
what I wanted to do with my life, as a young person, I was interested in psychology and
why people behave the way that they do, and always imagined myself as a therapist or counsellor,
someone doing kind of one-to-one sort of work, but it seemed as if every time I got into
some sort of role that was like that, suddenly someone thought it would be a good idea if
I moved into a management sort of role. So, at some point, I realised I’m still interested
in people and what makes them do the things that they do but that maybe my place is to
do that in a less direct way. It’s always been very important for me to
be a catalyst for other people’s work and other people’s achievements, so when I see
what they’re doing and I hear of their results of the sort of achievements that the students
are having through the sort of culture change that we’re gone through in our education
programs here. I think that’s when I most clearly see the results of my sort of leadership.