Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective sy aside of life the average person is never
Speaker 1: exposed to. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years, I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of I Catchkillers. If you've been
Speaker 1: an avid listener to I Catchkillers, I'm sure you've been
Speaker 1: as confronted as much as I have. Regarding the amount
Speaker 1: of people who have been sexually abused as children, the
Speaker 1: impact pikable offense has on their lives is far reaching.
Speaker 1: It's an offense that has to stop. In today's episode
Speaker 1: of I Catch Killers, we're going to do something a
Speaker 1: little different. We're going to discuss ways in which this
Speaker 1: crime can be prevented and what to do if you
Speaker 1: become aware or concerned the child is being sexually abused.
Speaker 1: We're speaking to retired Western Australian detective Christy McVeigh, who
Speaker 1: specialized in child abuse investigation. Christy is also the author
Speaker 1: of a very informative book called Operation Kids Safe. A
Speaker 1: couple of years ago we had Christy on the podcast
Speaker 1: to discuss a police career and I couldn't think of
Speaker 1: a better person to get back on to discuss child
Speaker 1: predative behavior, how to protect and empowered children so they
Speaker 1: don't become victims. This is going to be a very
Speaker 1: important episode. Christy mcvee, welcome back to I Catch Killers.
Speaker 2: Thank you well, it's.
Speaker 1: Good to finally see you in person. We've spent so
Speaker 1: much time talking over the phone. We even did a
Speaker 1: podcast over zoom. I think that might have been back
Speaker 1: in the bad old days of no travel. Everyone stuck.
Speaker 2: It was two plus years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're doing some other stuff. This is I
Speaker 1: just want people to get a sense of why I've
Speaker 1: got you on, because you are a very sought after
Speaker 1: person in regards to this subject matter that you talk about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm over here for that. I came over
Speaker 3: specifically for south By Southwest, but whilst I was here,
Speaker 3: I managed to obviously catch up with you, catching up
Speaker 3: with the Mum Club podcast, got some school presentations and
Speaker 3: early childhood presentations and just catching up with survivors and
Speaker 3: victims and other people.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, the work that you're doing is making a difference,
Speaker 1: So congratulations, but I'm glad in discussions we had before
Speaker 1: we started recording, you're also going to walk the Sydney
Speaker 1: Harbor Bridge.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's my celebratory for me for all of the
Speaker 3: work that I've done this week and just to end
Speaker 3: off the week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you've got to find some light because it's
Speaker 1: such a heavy subject that you talk about and your expertise,
Speaker 1: and so I understand that why you need to recharge,
Speaker 1: and I can't think of a better way than climbing
Speaker 1: the Harbor Bridge.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, some people would think that that was a bit excessive,
Speaker 3: but I'm excited because it's one of those bucket list
Speaker 3: things to do.
Speaker 1: Oh. I hope you're looking forward to it, and I
Speaker 1: hope you get a good day. Whether I want to
Speaker 1: ask upfront, why are you and people that have listened
Speaker 1: to the podcast heard us talk about child sexual abuse,
Speaker 1: and they would have heard your episode and your background.
Speaker 1: But I just want to ask the question up front,
Speaker 1: why are you so passionate about this subject.
Speaker 3: It's because I can't sleep if I don't do this work.
Speaker 3: It's my soul's mission. After hearing all of the children
Speaker 3: that I heard, all of the stories that I was told,
Speaker 3: all the victim survivors that contact me even today, someone
Speaker 3: needs to shine a light on what these people do
Speaker 3: and help parents understand how easy it is for child
Speaker 3: sext defenders and predators to worm their way into their homes,
Speaker 3: into their lives, and attack or abuse their children. And
Speaker 3: if someone like myself who has the strength to talk
Speaker 3: about it and share it, it brings forward people who
Speaker 3: can talk about it and share it, and it creates
Speaker 3: a wave of ripple effect.
Speaker 1: Well, you come across as a driven person, and I
Speaker 1: can't think of a better thing to channel channel your
Speaker 1: energy into. But you've said, shine the light on the
Speaker 1: spotlight on this insidious offense and these predators, these creepy
Speaker 1: people that prey on children. People don't like talking about it.
Speaker 2: Do they No, No, they do not.
Speaker 1: Now you you're spending most of your time talking about
Speaker 1: this subject. Why do you think people are so reluctant?
Speaker 1: Is it too confronting?
Speaker 3: Because it's for some people it's just so arborant and
Speaker 3: so horrible to consider that someone would do this. For
Speaker 3: some people, if they speak about it, it means they
Speaker 3: have to confront their own complicit behaviors. How they haven't
Speaker 3: stood up for someone. For some people, it's because they
Speaker 3: they don't want to. They have to make changes if
Speaker 3: they actually confront it and accept that this is happening
Speaker 3: in their family or it's happened in their family, And
Speaker 3: for most people, the easiest thing to do is to
Speaker 3: ignore it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you nail it because well, in regards to the
Speaker 1: way I look at it, the points that you hit
Speaker 1: on there that are complicit, why didn't they do something?
Speaker 1: They're going to have to change. Their whole world's going
Speaker 1: to be tipped upside down. And that's when someone with
Speaker 1: a family member is suspected of it that if you
Speaker 1: bring that to the four it's going to turn the
Speaker 1: family structure upside down. It might be the breadwinner of
Speaker 1: the family, all sorts of things relationships complicit in it.
Speaker 1: I think people hide behind it, Like people just turn there.
Speaker 1: It's too confronting and they don't want to don't want
Speaker 1: to speak about it or point out what they've seen.
Speaker 1: Is that your take on it? Is that what you
Speaker 1: just explained how I'm interpreting it.
Speaker 3: Mostly, Yeah, some people are just some family members, parents,
Speaker 3: you know, loved ones. They it's happened to them as well.
Speaker 3: And if they stand up to what they see or
Speaker 3: what's happening to a child, then they have to also
Speaker 3: look at what's happened to them, and they have to
Speaker 3: admit that it's happened to them, or they have to
Speaker 3: look at how they've reacted what they've done, and not
Speaker 3: everyone's brave enough to do that, so it comes from
Speaker 3: many places. Probably the hardest one to deal with for
Speaker 3: me personally is the wilful ignorance. The people who stand
Speaker 3: by and just pretend it's not happening, and they know
Speaker 3: what's happening, they do nothing about it, and they basically
Speaker 3: shut down the child or shut down the family member
Speaker 3: or whatever. That's probably the hardest part for me, and
Speaker 3: that's just cowdice.
Speaker 1: Basically, I'm really what you've talked, willful ignorance and cowardice
Speaker 1: I think that should be legislated against, as in, people
Speaker 1: that do know about it should be there should be
Speaker 1: a charge. Now that sounds pretty heavy, but I'm tired
Speaker 1: of hearing about people I knew that was going on,
Speaker 1: or I suspected that was going on. Well, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what went wrong. When we talk these organizations, the Catholic Church,
Speaker 1: the Scout clubs, or all the other things that have
Speaker 1: been identified, people knew about it, but they didn't come forward.
Speaker 1: And for the life of me, if someone's aware of
Speaker 1: a murder and you withhold information, there's an offense there.
Speaker 1: Why isn't the same with child's sexual abuse?
Speaker 3: We don't take it as seriously as murder. And in
Speaker 3: my opinion, child sexual abuse is just as bad. It
Speaker 3: ruins lives, it changes trajectories. You know, you just have
Speaker 3: to sit down with victim after victim of historical child
Speaker 3: sexual abuse and you have you've seen the damage it does.
Speaker 3: You know, a normal, everyday child having a happy childhood
Speaker 3: can have their whole life turned upside down from the
Speaker 3: minute that they're abused, and you know, it just does
Speaker 3: so much damage.
Speaker 2: And it is as worse as murder. It's as bad
Speaker 2: as murder.
Speaker 1: Should I say, well, the impact, and I've had to
Speaker 1: have a rethink about the way I look at crime
Speaker 1: and the ways of reducing crime. And you're a cop.
Speaker 1: I was a cop. We used to do it by
Speaker 1: arresting people. You're now preventing crime, which I think is
Speaker 1: a great way of not just solving the crime, preventing
Speaker 1: it by educating people and bringing them up up to date.
Speaker 1: But we really need to make a difference because the
Speaker 1: impact of child's sexual abuse. I didn't really appreciate it
Speaker 1: until I spent some time in a time in prison
Speaker 1: doing a project, a podcast project inside prison. I always
Speaker 1: thought the hatred the prison has had for pedophiles was
Speaker 1: because of the nature of the crime. But what I
Speaker 1: learned in there was they hate them because a lot
Speaker 1: of them are in there because they were abused as
Speaker 1: children and that's dictated their behavior, which has led to
Speaker 1: them being in prison. So if we really wanted to
Speaker 1: impact on crime, the offenses you're targeting and trying to
Speaker 1: prevent is probably the biggest biggest step we could make.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, and I've had you know, I did
Speaker 3: a small stinting proactive detective work, you know, drug doors
Speaker 3: and burglaries and stolomotors and stuff, and there would be
Speaker 3: a burglary series and I would go and speak to
Speaker 3: the person once I'd been caught, and you know, interview
Speaker 3: them and talk to them about what had happened. And generally,
Speaker 3: you know, I reckon ninety percent of the time, they
Speaker 3: were victims of child sexual abuse and that led them
Speaker 3: down the road to subsistence abuse and you know, you know,
Speaker 3: acting out and all of the behaviors that led to
Speaker 3: their crimes.
Speaker 1: Before we get into talking about your book, which I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're a parent, you want to project your kids
Speaker 1: or educate yourself, it's a great read because it's such
Speaker 1: a practical and it's got that cop practical I feel
Speaker 1: about it, and I say that in a good way,
Speaker 1: that understanding of Okay, these are the issues, how do
Speaker 1: we address it? But a little bit about yourself, just
Speaker 1: for people if they hadn't heard you on the podcast before.
Speaker 1: What's your background? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Sure, So I grew up in the pilbor in Well, Calgaroley,
Speaker 3: the pilbro all over the regional Western Australia. Parents separated
Speaker 3: when I was really little. I went with my dad
Speaker 3: for a while. I ended up getting kicked out at
Speaker 3: home of fifteen because of difference of opinions with parents.
Speaker 3: I ended up landing with my now in laws, my
Speaker 3: husband we've been together twenty seven years this year and
Speaker 3: married twenty three and from there basically went into you know,
Speaker 3: at eighteen border house. I was like, because unfortunately, you know,
Speaker 3: parents only do what they know, and this is one
Speaker 3: of the things you were talking about parenting and parents.
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of people hide behind the fact
Speaker 3: that this is all they know, this is what their
Speaker 3: parents did. And my parents acted how their parents acted,
Speaker 3: you know, they used their fists, use their words, you know.
Speaker 3: So I at eighteen, I bought a house because I
Speaker 3: was like, and I hope you don't mind me swearing
Speaker 3: how that I was like, fuck you, I'm going to
Speaker 3: show you that I can do this.
Speaker 1: So you come from Western Australia, I believe they use
Speaker 1: the word fuck is a punctuation.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I had someone frown at me the other
Speaker 3: day and I was like, I'm so sorry, I just
Speaker 3: can't not say it. Yeah, So I was, Yeah, I
Speaker 3: wanted to show my parents that I could, you know,
Speaker 3: prove them wrong that I was. Yeah, So I bought
Speaker 3: a house at eighteen just went about life. And then
Speaker 3: at twenty six, had my daughter, and that's when my
Speaker 3: life sort of took a change because I started looking
Speaker 3: at me as a human, as a parent, and when
Speaker 3: I don't want my daughter to have that same childhood.
Speaker 1: Interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So and then I saw an ad in the paper
Speaker 3: and for the police and I'm five foot one. I
Speaker 3: always joke about this, but I'm only little, and I
Speaker 3: thought I can do that, and everyone laughed at me.
Speaker 3: So then I went, fuck you, I'm going to show you.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I got into the police about eighteen months
Speaker 3: later in January twenty ten.
Speaker 1: And how long did you spend in the police and
Speaker 1: your career in the place you found your way in
Speaker 1: the child sexual abuse or child protection squads as a detective.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So my first four years was general duties up in Karratha.
Speaker 3: So again I went back to the region, back to
Speaker 3: the regions that was lack baptism by fire, because once
Speaker 3: you're in the regions, and once you're in a country
Speaker 3: area and there's no squads to come and savior, there's
Speaker 3: no one to come and fix your jobs for you,
Speaker 3: you're pretty much doing everything can. I learned forensics, I
Speaker 3: went to crime scenes murders. I went to sudden death,
Speaker 3: so I went to traffic crashes, I went to child
Speaker 3: abuse cases.
Speaker 2: So that was pretty pretty intense.
Speaker 3: But within the first year, the detective senior sergeant said,
Speaker 3: does anyone want to go and do this training to
Speaker 3: become a specialist child interviewer?
Speaker 2: And I put my hand up.
Speaker 3: And at that stage, my daughter was just turning three
Speaker 3: or just turned three, and I didn't know what I
Speaker 3: was walking into.
Speaker 2: I just knew that.
Speaker 3: I wanted to add more more to what I was
Speaker 3: doing in the community, that I wanted to be more
Speaker 3: and so I went and did this six five six
Speaker 3: week training in Perth, which is sixteen hundred kilometers away,
Speaker 3: five six weeks away from my daughter, and I learned
Speaker 3: about child sexual abuse and how to interview kids so
Speaker 3: that their evidence can be used in courts. So yeah,
Speaker 3: it was pretty intense. And that's where I just my
Speaker 3: blinkers were blown off. I was like, I had no idea.
Speaker 1: Okay, So that opened the world to you of what
Speaker 1: actually goes on with child sexual abuse and that's been
Speaker 1: your life mission. Yeah, well, of sense.
Speaker 3: It wasn't at first. It was more like I just
Speaker 3: want to do more. But as I interviewed kids and
Speaker 3: I'm talking hundreds of kids, and as I was talking
Speaker 3: to children, I saw patterns of behavior and I was thinking,
Speaker 3: why doesn't anyone see this, Like why don't they see
Speaker 3: the grooming that's going on or that these.
Speaker 2: People are acting like this.
Speaker 3: And then after four years in the PILBRA, I went,
Speaker 3: I don't want to hand my files over to the police,
Speaker 3: to the detective anymore.
Speaker 2: I want to be one of them. I want to
Speaker 2: lock up the bad guys as well.
Speaker 3: So I applied for I've done the forensic training as well,
Speaker 3: but then applied for detectives at the same time and
Speaker 3: got in and did the six weeks training in Perth again,
Speaker 3: and I had to move back to Perth to become
Speaker 3: a detective probationary detective. And from there I went into
Speaker 3: a small stint, like I said, in a proactive team,
Speaker 3: and then I went into the child abuse squad.
Speaker 2: I put my hand up to go.
Speaker 1: Okay and the child abuse squads it's a tough gig
Speaker 1: in whatever state you were working in. Because it seemed
Speaker 1: to be and this is my observation throughout my career underresourced, yes,
Speaker 1: because it wasn't it wasn't a headline type squad where
Speaker 1: the work that you've done gets played out in the media,
Speaker 1: and quite often the members were overworked and there was
Speaker 1: a high burnout rate, and the nature of the nature
Speaker 1: of the crimes that you're investigating to the things that
Speaker 1: you come across, there's a high turnover rate and the
Speaker 1: high rate of people burning themselves out in those squads.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. And you know, because the work is so important,
Speaker 3: you feel like you can't stop, you know, as if
Speaker 3: you care as I mean, people that care about this
Speaker 3: work going too that work, and so you go into
Speaker 3: it knowing that it's going to be hard, but you
Speaker 3: just don't realize how hard.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, the crime keeps continuing. If you
Speaker 1: don't pick up the ball and run with it and
Speaker 1: do your job, there's some poor kid that's probably continually
Speaker 1: been sexually abused and because you haven't had a chance
Speaker 1: to get onto it. So I can see how it's
Speaker 1: a rabbit hole that you just fall down and it's
Speaker 1: never ending.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: Okay, you got out of the police what what brought
Speaker 1: that on the decision?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So we talked about this on the last podcast,
Speaker 3: but I ended up with really severe anxiety and PTSD.
Speaker 3: And that was about the last eighteen months in the police.
Speaker 3: I went to another regional center where I live now,
Speaker 3: and I was interviewing kids, investigating their cases, locking up
Speaker 3: the bad guys. And then I was also part of
Speaker 3: the team that managed the sex offenders when they were
Speaker 3: released from prison. And yeah, it just was too much.
Speaker 3: And like you said, every time you did one file
Speaker 3: there was ten waiting or twenty waiting. You know, you
Speaker 3: just never got through it, and it just was never ending,
Speaker 3: so the severe anxiety PTSD. One day, I was barely
Speaker 3: able to function at home and my daughter was about
Speaker 3: eleven at the time, and she just said to me, Mom,
Speaker 3: you're not the mum I remember anymore.
Speaker 2: I don't want you to do this anymore.
Speaker 1: That's confronting, isn't when your young child points out, hey,
Speaker 1: you change. It's impacting on you. But the full credit
Speaker 1: to you that you took control of it before you
Speaker 1: were too broken, and clearly you left but you still
Speaker 1: had a passion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I resigned the next day, actually, but I
Speaker 3: sort of took some time to make sure I was
Speaker 3: making the right decision. And then when I left, all broken,
Speaker 3: and you know, struggling with PTSD. And I'm sure you've
Speaker 3: got lots of listeners or lots of people and the
Speaker 3: guests who've talked about it. You know, I was struggling.
Speaker 3: I wasn't sure how I was going to move on.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what else to do, but I just
Speaker 3: knew that I wanted people to know what I knew.
Speaker 2: So I just started writing things down.
Speaker 3: And as I was writing them down and putting them
Speaker 3: into story form, I was like, I actually think this
Speaker 3: might be a book.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what it became, an Operation kid Safe
Speaker 1: that you wrote, And full credit to you because it's
Speaker 1: something that I've read the book and that's so educational,
Speaker 1: and you know, some of the stuff is obvious, but
Speaker 1: it's obviously some of the obvious stuff is stuff that
Speaker 1: we ignore, and I just want to this is how
Speaker 1: the books described, because we're going to break down some
Speaker 1: of the lessons learned in the education that comes out
Speaker 1: from the book, but this is the way the books
Speaker 1: being described. This confronting but insightful book will provide you
Speaker 1: with knowledge about child predator behaviors, tips on how to
Speaker 1: protect and empower your children through different ages and stages
Speaker 1: of child and teenage development, along with creating a healthy
Speaker 1: respect for online safety. Well, you pretty well ticked all
Speaker 1: the things that as a parent or someone that's responsible
Speaker 1: for children you want to be able to provide. So
Speaker 1: I'm going to ask you questions and pulling stuff from
Speaker 1: that and if you could share share your knowledge with
Speaker 1: our listeners. I want this to be an educational situation
Speaker 1: where people will go, Okay, that makes sense because some
Speaker 1: of the things that are so obvious but we just
Speaker 1: don't know ignore or just slips through through the cracks
Speaker 1: child sex offenders. You've worked in the worked in the
Speaker 1: investigative part of that in policing and new work that
Speaker 1: you've done. Now i'd ask the obvious question, who are they?
Speaker 3: Well, they're definitely not the old man in the white
Speaker 3: van that we were taught in whenever it was that
Speaker 3: strange danger message that don't take all these from strangers,
Speaker 3: et cetera.
Speaker 2: They are everyone, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: And that that was part of the education that I
Speaker 1: know in my childhood growing up, it was the bloke
Speaker 1: in the rain cap with no clothes and it would
Speaker 1: flash when you walk past. That was the only image
Speaker 1: I had sort of growing up of what a child
Speaker 1: sex offender was and that was the narrative that was
Speaker 1: put out. But the message was sent with good intent,
Speaker 1: but I think it misguided us all on who these
Speaker 1: predators are. So they can be they can be anyone,
Speaker 1: can't they anyone?
Speaker 2: Absolutely anyone in your life.
Speaker 1: There seems to me, and I didn't create the term predators,
Speaker 1: but they are predatory in the way that they go
Speaker 1: about it. When I've locked up pedophiles, I'm surprised of
Speaker 1: how proactive they are looking looking for their victims. Part
Speaker 1: of their thing is they get people to trust them. Yes,
Speaker 1: And you look at some of the some of the
Speaker 1: areas of employment where it just sort of cries out
Speaker 1: for it, whether it's you're seeing a lot more come
Speaker 1: out about coach of kids' sports teams, like everyone do
Speaker 1: what the coach says. You have the religious aspect of
Speaker 1: the religions that have been tarnished with the sex offenders,
Speaker 1: institutionalized sexual abuse. You have scout leaders, those type of
Speaker 1: type of people that the community look up to. But
Speaker 1: that just makes it easier for them to go about
Speaker 1: their business, doesn't.
Speaker 2: It very much so?
Speaker 3: And there was a recent study earlier this year, late
Speaker 3: last year by the Institute of Criminology, and they basically
Speaker 3: did an anonymous survey of men in Australia and the
Speaker 3: survey was the questions were so well put that basically
Speaker 3: they were able to work out that one in six
Speaker 3: Australian men are attracted to children and I'm sure I can.
Speaker 2: Share that for the show notes.
Speaker 3: And then also that anyone attracted to children is three
Speaker 3: times more likely to be in a job working with children.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's break those figures. So one in six yes, males, Yes,
Speaker 1: attracted to sexually attracted to children. Yes. And then what
Speaker 1: was the other figure.
Speaker 3: That they're three times more likely to work in a
Speaker 3: position where they have access to children.
Speaker 1: Okay, do you think that's no, that's probably delving, delving
Speaker 1: too deep. But it makes sense that they're in an
Speaker 1: industry if that says sexual attraction, that's where they gravitate
Speaker 1: towards and that they get get access access to children.
Speaker 1: It was recently in I think it's Australia wide them,
Speaker 1: not even sure which state, but they well known swimming
Speaker 1: coach that was convicted child's sexual abuse. Like an environment
Speaker 1: like that is, yeah, it's just conducive to carrying out
Speaker 1: their evil ways.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, any any position of power and authority. You know.
Speaker 3: So it's like you said, it's if they're attracted, if
Speaker 3: they even have an inkling of an attraction, you know,
Speaker 3: if they like kids, they're going to be you know,
Speaker 3: heading towards that pathway. They're going to find jobs where
Speaker 3: they're surrounded by children. You know, a lot of predators
Speaker 3: and pedophiles might not realize to begin with that they
Speaker 3: actually have that attraction.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's when I said, that's too deep. That's what
Speaker 1: I want them to talk about. So it's that environment.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's opened their eyes to they are attracted to them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well it also there's so many different factors. And look,
Speaker 3: I'm not a psychologist or a criminologist. I'm just someone
Speaker 3: who's very observant. And so some of them will have,
Speaker 3: you know, and not an inkling. They might think about
Speaker 3: children and then they start watching certain pornography and then
Speaker 3: they you know, and it takes years. Sometimes not always.
Speaker 3: Some people just go, I like children, I'm going to
Speaker 3: abuse children. But sometimes it takes years to get over
Speaker 3: that that knowledge and to get past their restrictions or
Speaker 3: their beliefs and their values that they know that that's wrong.
Speaker 3: They have to get past that, and so they have
Speaker 3: to then you know, it can take years. And the
Speaker 3: other thing that research found is that the men that
Speaker 3: had admitted to being attracted and abusing children, they were
Speaker 3: in the.
Speaker 2: Forty plus category.
Speaker 3: The men that admitted to being attracted to children and
Speaker 3: wanting help were in the thirty minus category. And that
Speaker 3: sort of rings true with me because I saw a
Speaker 3: lot of sex offenders who had gone years without doing
Speaker 3: anything and all of a sudden they start offending.
Speaker 1: Is the system set up? And there's so much to
Speaker 1: talk about with the men that are attracted to children,
Speaker 1: but they seek help. Is there help available to men
Speaker 1: like that?
Speaker 3: Only just recently there was never any help. I don't
Speaker 3: even know. But there's now anonymous that word phone line
Speaker 3: called US and you can basically stop it now. Australia
Speaker 3: is the phone line and you can look up on
Speaker 3: the website. You can talk to a psychologist, but it's
Speaker 3: very underfunded, so it's very.
Speaker 2: Hard to get people.
Speaker 3: But there are people who know that they're gotten attraction
Speaker 3: to children want help for it.
Speaker 1: Okay, because I know, and I'm a part to blame
Speaker 1: that pedophiles will stuff them. I don't care about them.
Speaker 1: And all that someone raised just in the philosophical discussion
Speaker 1: I had with a friend about what if someone came
Speaker 1: and said they're attracted to children and they don't want
Speaker 1: to offend, what should happen? And I'm beating on the
Speaker 1: chest all the bravado all stuff, and if they're attracted
Speaker 1: to children, but really, there's a place for a service
Speaker 1: like that, isn't there?
Speaker 2: There definitely is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if we want to, if we want to fight
Speaker 3: child sexual abuse, we need to fight it from all angles.
Speaker 3: We can't just say stuff them and throw them in
Speaker 3: the jail and leave them in the corner. We need
Speaker 3: to fight it from all angles. And some of it
Speaker 3: has to be therapeutic. Some of it has to be
Speaker 3: through psychology and through understanding why.
Speaker 1: And for someone to I think it takes courage for
Speaker 1: someone to put the hand up if they haven't offended
Speaker 1: and go, look, I'm tutoring. And that's sexual urge. Like
Speaker 1: I saw it in homicide. You see it in so
Speaker 1: many crimes. It's a powerful urge and people struggle to
Speaker 1: fight against it. If someone's got that attraction to children
Speaker 1: and they haven't offended and that they want to get help, yeah,
Speaker 1: it needs to be there.
Speaker 3: It needs to be there. We've got to take it
Speaker 3: from all angles. But one of the things that I
Speaker 3: don't think people understand with sex offenders is that there's
Speaker 3: three types, or in study and research, there's three types,
Speaker 3: but they're they're expanding this. So the first is predatory
Speaker 3: or pedophilic. They're born attracted to children. According to this
Speaker 3: study and basically everything, they're the classic sex offender. One
Speaker 3: of the interesting things I actually had a criminologist on
Speaker 3: my podcast recently and she said, in that pedophilic predatory,
Speaker 3: they usually abuse boys, so they're more likely to abuse
Speaker 3: boys and young children. And the next category is opportunistic,
Speaker 3: so they can have a relationship with her, female or
Speaker 3: whatever part but then they will offend against children as well.
Speaker 2: So the first the predatory, they.
Speaker 3: Generally won't be able to have a relationship with women
Speaker 3: or with a partner because they're.
Speaker 2: Attracted to children in the attraction.
Speaker 3: The second the opportunistic, they can have a relationship, they
Speaker 3: can go years with nothing happening and then something triggers
Speaker 3: it or they finally get their chance. And then the
Speaker 3: last one is situational, and we see situational offenders. They're
Speaker 3: the type that break into someone's house, to break into
Speaker 3: someone's house and steal something and then rape the person inside.
Speaker 3: So or they lose their job and they've lost all
Speaker 3: control and power, or their wife's left them or whatever,
Speaker 3: and then they're abusing whatever because they're trying to get
Speaker 3: control back.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Make sense? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So it's not one.
Speaker 3: Size fits all. They're just attracted to children. They just
Speaker 3: you know, they're just a pedophile. There is multiple different
Speaker 3: ways in which they offend.
Speaker 1: Okay, when we're talking, we'll move on. But I just
Speaker 1: want to raise another aspect. When I catch my son's socked,
Speaker 1: you had to fill out working with Children's form and
Speaker 1: that is there room for improvement on those type of documents?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Okay, Well I'm smirking because working with children checks obviously
Speaker 3: working that they identify if someone's had an offense against
Speaker 3: a child, But other than that, it takes twenty four
Speaker 3: years twenty four to thirty years twenty four for women
Speaker 3: and thirty years before first disclosure for most people.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So, so the offend that could basically go through their
Speaker 1: whole life about it being disclosed, correct, yea, So any
Speaker 1: way that that could be improved?
Speaker 2: Yeah, talking about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, but like talking about how do we do the
Speaker 1: safety check, I put my hand up and want to
Speaker 1: coach my son's soccer team. Is there any any ways
Speaker 1: that you think we could improve it or scrutinize it
Speaker 1: a little bit more.
Speaker 3: There's no ways on the without having a relationship with someone,
Speaker 3: there's no ways to tell, right. But I think every
Speaker 3: community group, sports organization they need to have some form
Speaker 3: of child safety policy where and child safety training where,
Speaker 3: for instance, someone like myself comes in and says, hey,
Speaker 3: this is what you've got to watch out for in
Speaker 3: your members, this is what this is how you can
Speaker 3: cover your ass and make sure that your children are
Speaker 3: safe in your environment whilst they're in your care, because
Speaker 3: it's your duty of care to keep them safe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it would be a big ask, and I
Speaker 1: think most people do this naturally. People like I would
Speaker 1: never be in a change room with a young kid
Speaker 1: on my own that type of stuff. So maybe it
Speaker 1: needs to be out set out. These are the rules
Speaker 1: you can't take a child or be with a child
Speaker 1: on your own, those type of things.
Speaker 3: But it's interesting you say that that's something that you
Speaker 3: say I would never do that.
Speaker 2: That's just that's common sense to you.
Speaker 1: They're okay, they're in there there, And that's probably the difference,
Speaker 1: isn't it, Because the ones that would be inclined to
Speaker 1: offend probably, Oh, this is a great opportunity. I'll drive
Speaker 1: Johnny home today. Don't you worry about picking your son up.
Speaker 1: I'll drive him home. Whereas I think, no, I don't
Speaker 1: want to put anyone in that position.
Speaker 3: Correct, And that's common sense to you, But to the
Speaker 3: average person that's not common sense.
Speaker 1: Okay, well there's room for improvement there. How do I'm
Speaker 1: just going through some of the obvious things, But again,
Speaker 1: sometimes what's obvious isn't It doesn't jump out. How do
Speaker 1: they target children? As a parent, what are you looking
Speaker 1: out for if you're worried about a person, or how
Speaker 1: they target the children, how they find their victims.
Speaker 3: So they're looking for children who are vulnerable, and vulnerability
Speaker 3: comes in lots of ways. It comes in that they're
Speaker 3: very young and they don't have the necessary language skills
Speaker 3: to be able to say anything. Sadly, that happens a lot.
Speaker 3: And then they're looking for children who either don't have
Speaker 3: very good parental guidance supervision, parents who are very busy,
Speaker 3: they go into positions of power and authority of children
Speaker 3: where they're naturally trusted with children, and they just find
Speaker 3: that child that might not have very good self esteem,
Speaker 3: might not have very good support in place. They're looking,
Speaker 3: they're searching for that victim, and they're finding those victims,
Speaker 3: and they're easy to find because as parents, they're not
Speaker 3: going to target a child who has a strong parent
Speaker 3: behind them.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm just thinking anecdotally the people who have come
Speaker 1: on the podcast that invariably when they've been victims of
Speaker 1: child sexual abuse, it's because there's been some upturn in
Speaker 1: their family or they haven't got the supervision that the
Speaker 1: kids within a more stable home.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I also want to mention, you know, sadly,
Speaker 3: some of these predators will target single parents, you know,
Speaker 3: where the child is moving from one home to the other,
Speaker 3: where there's no stability or there's a lack of stability.
Speaker 3: They will target you know, a lot of those sorts
Speaker 3: of parents as well, because that means that they can
Speaker 3: come into that life and be living in that life
Speaker 3: with that child. It's an automatic trust.
Speaker 1: Okay, So hearing what you're saying here, the responsibility in
Speaker 1: you've got to educate the children, but you've also got
Speaker 1: to create the protective behaviors of the parents. So breaking
Speaker 1: it down, how would you summarize the best way to
Speaker 1: protect your protect your child.
Speaker 3: First of all, we need to well, I always think awareness.
Speaker 3: So this is a really uncomfortable conversation for a lot
Speaker 3: of people. And I always whenever I stand in front
Speaker 3: of a room of people and talk about this, I
Speaker 3: give them a content warning and I say, look, this
Speaker 3: is really uncomfortable, and it's uncomfortable for everyone in this room.
Speaker 3: But I encourage you to lean into the uncomfortableness and
Speaker 3: work out why it's uncomfortable for you, because that is
Speaker 3: the answer to how we're going to stop, you know,
Speaker 3: and how we're going to stop leaning backwards and let's
Speaker 3: lean forward into it. And so the first thing is awareness,
Speaker 3: you know, listening to this podcast, reading books about understanding.
Speaker 3: Ninety percent of that is by someone known to the child.
Speaker 3: So it's not a stranger who's going to come and
Speaker 3: abuse your child. It's going to be someone in your
Speaker 3: own home, someone you've invited into your own home or
Speaker 3: is part of your family. Sadly, forty seven percent of
Speaker 3: that and this is from last year's Australian Bureau Statistics.
Speaker 3: Forty seven percent of that is a male adult or sorry,
Speaker 3: a male in the family, and twenty six percent is
Speaker 3: an immediate family member or sorry non immediate family member, uncle, cousin, grandfather,
Speaker 3: et cetera. Sixteen percent is a father or stepfather, and
Speaker 3: six percent is a brother or stepbrother. So that is
Speaker 3: one of the things that we need to remember. Thirty
Speaker 3: to fifty percent of all child sexual abuse is by
Speaker 3: another child, So we need to know that these are
Speaker 3: the statistics, these are the realities because whilst we if
Speaker 3: it's predictable, it's preventable, it's not someone else's child.
Speaker 2: It can happen to It can happen to your.
Speaker 1: Child, okay, And when you say being comfortable leaning into it,
Speaker 1: it is confronting, isn't it, Because you're okay, it could
Speaker 1: be a family member, so you're not, Oh, we're all safe,
Speaker 1: everyone's at home, a big party, we're safe in this environment.
Speaker 1: They are the times that you're just going to be aware.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: My first job, my first child abuse job, when I
Speaker 3: was probationary constable, was a young girl had gone to
Speaker 3: her friend's house for a sleepover. The parents were having
Speaker 3: a party so that they let the kids have their
Speaker 3: friends over. And one of the guests at that party
Speaker 3: abused the girl while overnight, whilst he was drunk and
Speaker 3: there and that's no excuse. The alcohol was no excuse.
Speaker 3: But she should have been safe in that environment and
Speaker 3: the supervision should have been there and no one she wasn't.
Speaker 1: And again, if you're that sort of awareness, and what
Speaker 1: we talked about where I said, if I'm coaching a
Speaker 1: kid's soccer team, I'm not on my own with the
Speaker 1: child if there's someone because quite often you hear it
Speaker 1: and I just remember this from a police time that Yeah,
Speaker 1: he always used to hang around the kids at the party.
Speaker 1: Everyone all the adults will be on the back deck
Speaker 1: having a drink and eating. There's one person playing down
Speaker 1: in the backyard with the kids the whole time.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's exactly how it goes.
Speaker 1: And we're not accusing every one of those ones playing
Speaker 1: with the kids, but let's just keep an eye on
Speaker 1: why is that person spending so much time with the children.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So last week my mum was talking to me.
Speaker 3: It was actually quite funny because I was getting I
Speaker 3: had a photo shoot for some content stuff, and she
Speaker 3: was doing my makeup, and she said, I've seen you
Speaker 3: on TikTok and I was like wow. Anyway, so she
Speaker 3: straightaway told me this story. And the story was that
Speaker 3: they were at Christmas party. Everyone was drinking, all the
Speaker 3: adults were drinking. Her cousin, a family member, had bought
Speaker 3: her new boyfriend with her.
Speaker 2: He's in his.
Speaker 3: Thirties, she's in her thirties, and he did that. He
Speaker 3: was hanging around the kids all night, and she kept
Speaker 3: going like she didn't sit right with her. So she
Speaker 3: kept going, you know, to check in, Hey, leave the
Speaker 3: kids alone, like come and hang with the adults kind
Speaker 3: of thing. They're fine, they're looking after each other. And
Speaker 3: you know, later that night, whilst everyone was drunk, he
Speaker 3: tried to kiss the ten year old. And you know,
Speaker 3: luckily they had such a close knit family. She come
Speaker 3: running out, told her mom. Mom went to make her
Speaker 3: like blow up and make a big deal about it.
Speaker 3: Everyone told her to be quiet, like it's not that
Speaker 3: big a deal. You know, this is a thing like
Speaker 3: culturally and socially, we aren't speaking up for kids. And
Speaker 3: in fact, that person come running out after the little
Speaker 3: girls like it's okay, it's okay, I'll give you the lollies,
Speaker 3: you know. And what he had tried to do was
Speaker 3: get her close to him. He said, come here, I've
Speaker 3: got a secret, and yeah, tried to kiss her on
Speaker 3: the lips, and.
Speaker 2: He had all the red flags gone on.
Speaker 3: And you know, unfortunately, because she had spoken up at
Speaker 3: the party, she you know, the party shut down straight
Speaker 3: after that. She's now been ostracized by the family because
Speaker 3: they think well, and he's also still in the family
Speaker 3: making a big deal that she's the problem.
Speaker 1: I sit here and I've got anger written all over
Speaker 1: my face because I hate those situations where people are
Speaker 1: just not and I don't know like you, and I
Speaker 1: look at it and I feel like, yeah, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if we get that from play, like we've had
Speaker 1: to learn to. Yeah, people do bad things and sometimes
Speaker 1: action's got to be taken. But that seeckens me. That's
Speaker 1: the way that played out. But as you're telling the story,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking how it plays out, they'll be pissed off
Speaker 1: because people are enjoying the party and we're making a
Speaker 1: big deal. There was nothing. Yeah, And I say, and
Speaker 1: the scenario there is such a typical scenario. Typical scenario.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he chose the wrong child though, And it was
Speaker 3: interesting because she said the family member that had brought
Speaker 3: him to the party, she doesn't like kids, and he
Speaker 3: was hanging around the kids. So she was hanging around
Speaker 3: him because that was her partner, her new partner, and
Speaker 3: she was like, I don't understand how she would spend
Speaker 3: all that time with the kids and why she wasn't
Speaker 3: dragging him back outside. And he saw it as his
Speaker 3: prime opportunity to try something on And I have no
Speaker 3: idea why he would try that with a child that
Speaker 3: obviously had But sometimes they stuff up. Yeah, sometimes they
Speaker 3: make mistakes of who they pick as a victim.
Speaker 1: And I want to talk about but the kids making
Speaker 1: them be able to identify the dangers. We're talking more
Speaker 1: so at the parents. But you're also one of the
Speaker 1: things that you said that of the type of people
Speaker 1: of the fan, kids sexually abuse other kids. Yeah, tell
Speaker 1: me about tell me about that, because that's another aspect
Speaker 1: that we don't because, okay, well, everyone's safety because there's
Speaker 1: kids in there, but there's a big power and balance
Speaker 1: if one child's three or four years older than the
Speaker 1: other child. So tell us that you take on that. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So when I first joined the job, when we saw
Speaker 3: a child displaying harmful sexualized behaviors, which is harming other children,
Speaker 3: abusing other children, we naturally assumed that they'd been abused
Speaker 3: because that was used to be the norm. Right. If
Speaker 3: a child displayed these harmful sexualized behaviors touching another child, inappropriately,
Speaker 3: forcing another child to do things, coercing another child, that
Speaker 3: meant that something's happening in the background. But now towards
Speaker 3: the end of my career and since speaking to more
Speaker 3: victims and more survivors, we're now seeing a lot more
Speaker 3: children displaying those harmful sexualized behavior is due to exposure
Speaker 3: to pornography.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, that makes sense because the type of exposure
Speaker 1: they get to pornography is just mind blowing compared to
Speaker 1: what generation before was exposed to. So I could imagine
Speaker 1: kids acting out what they're seeing on the pornography they're watching,
Speaker 1: and there's victims to that as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and if we don't counterbalance what they're seeing online
Speaker 3: by a conversation or by you know, having those conversations
Speaker 3: and education around it, then they're just acting out what
Speaker 3: they're seeing. And and you know, I think the current
Speaker 3: start on you know, first exposure to pornography is eight
Speaker 3: is the earliest age, and it's younger.
Speaker 2: Head's way younger.
Speaker 3: Well, and the sexualization online and all of the other
Speaker 3: stuff they're seeing online, you know, so if we don't
Speaker 3: counterbalance that with conversations around body safety and we'll talk
Speaker 3: more about that soon. Basically, our kids are just acting
Speaker 3: out what they see. They dance to what they see,
Speaker 3: they dress to what they see. So why wouldn't they
Speaker 3: be acting out, you know, seized behaviors unless we have
Speaker 3: that conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, an important point. And if they're saying by eight,
Speaker 1: we'll think of all the stuff you got away with
Speaker 1: as a kid before your parents realized. I'm sure the
Speaker 1: kids have getting exposed to it at an earlier age.
Speaker 1: So how and when do you start conversation protecting the children,
Speaker 1: as in getting the children to be aware of what's
Speaker 1: going on. How does that play out?
Speaker 3: I talk about it from birth, but that's and I
Speaker 3: realized that that's like a concept that goes why would
Speaker 3: we talk about this from birth? But I'm not meaning
Speaker 3: that we talk about this stuff as in I'm going
Speaker 3: to tell you about what sexual abuse is. What I'm
Speaker 3: talking about is consent and body autonomy. You know, when
Speaker 3: you have a young baby, you talk to them about
Speaker 3: what you're doing to their body. Hey, i'm just changing
Speaker 3: your nappy. I'm just going to wipe this part. I'm
Speaker 3: just going to put these clothes on now. And we
Speaker 3: start verbalizing what we're doing, and you start talking to
Speaker 3: them about what you're doing to them. And then when
Speaker 3: they get to about two and they're now having much
Speaker 3: more verbalized conversations. We also make sure that we're using
Speaker 3: correct body terminology with children. You know, we name all
Speaker 3: their parts, and we also talk to them about private
Speaker 3: versus public, and you know, two seems really young, but hey,
Speaker 3: that's our private part. You know, you're just having those
Speaker 3: conversations and reinforcing those messages that this is their body,
Speaker 3: they're in charge of their body, and these are their parts,
Speaker 3: and that this is what's private and this is what's public.
Speaker 3: And as we do everything with them, we're changing them,
Speaker 3: we're helping them toilet train, we're doing we're just reinforcing that.
Speaker 3: And eventually they get to an age around three where
Speaker 3: we start asking consent, Hey, is it okay if i'll
Speaker 3: wipe your mom?
Speaker 1: Okay? Well, see you've educated me, because I wouldn't have
Speaker 1: thought that they even kicked in at that stage. But
Speaker 1: I understand what you're saying, because yeah, they're the form
Speaker 1: of the views, you know, two, the three, four, that
Speaker 1: type of that type of age. Okay, so that's that's
Speaker 1: the narrative starts at that early age.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, we're just giving them. We're just giving them
Speaker 3: the respect they deserve and the bodily autonomy. And then
Speaker 3: what happens is is that as we're teaching these lessons
Speaker 3: and that we're you know, scaffolding them all or adding
Speaker 3: to them as they get older, we can start talking
Speaker 3: about private versus public movies, private versus public photos. We
Speaker 3: don't actually have to talk about pornography at all. We
Speaker 3: can just say private parts. We don't show anyone our
Speaker 3: private parts, don't take photos of our private parts, and
Speaker 3: we never if someone shows us a private movie or
Speaker 3: a private photo of their private parts, what do we do.
Speaker 2: Okay, We're going to go and tell mum or dad
Speaker 2: or safe person.
Speaker 1: And having the parts named is that your penis your vagina,
Speaker 1: and have giving them the language instead of the stupid names.
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to say what mine was called
Speaker 1: when I was crying up. But that's the way it was.
Speaker 1: It was all ways a stupid, stupid name.
Speaker 2: Oh my godness, I've heard them all.
Speaker 3: But you know the thing is is we call it
Speaker 3: volver a vagina, bum bottom, you know, penis, testicle's mouth
Speaker 3: and the mouth is a private part by the way, everyone, okay,
Speaker 3: So we teach that all of these private parts are
Speaker 3: what they are because in little children, especially, predators will
Speaker 3: use games, they'll game afire their abuse in order to
Speaker 3: make the child enjoy it. Not all sexual abuse is painful, hurts,
Speaker 3: or that the child realizes what's happening.
Speaker 1: So the child's enjoying it getting rewarded for it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So okay, all those parts that you rattle off, they're
Speaker 1: your private parts and nipple's okay, and don't forget those, okay,
Speaker 1: no one forget that they're they're all the all the
Speaker 1: parts that the child should at an early age. And
Speaker 1: we're talking three understand they're my private parts. And then
Speaker 1: that child, be the boy or a girl, could have
Speaker 1: a conversation with a parent saying someone touched my private parts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I will tell you a story that just
Speaker 3: came last week. So I created these conversations with kids
Speaker 3: body safety cards so that to help parents have conversations
Speaker 3: with their kids and to prompt them in what questions,
Speaker 3: to ask them, how to talk to them. So I've
Speaker 3: created this like downloadable resource. And so this parent contacted
Speaker 3: me last week and said, I downloaded your cards. They're amazing.
Speaker 3: I just wanted to tell you that I was talking
Speaker 3: to my three year old daughter about body safety and
Speaker 3: she said a family member had dug into her vagina
Speaker 3: with his finger, right, Okay, And.
Speaker 2: That's really hard to hear.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, but and she said, if I hadn't been
Speaker 3: having that conversation, I don't know if she.
Speaker 2: Would have told me.
Speaker 1: Wow. Well, well, I said at the start, you're making
Speaker 1: the difference. But those things are important. But break down
Speaker 1: this card system, you said, because again these things that
Speaker 1: I thought I had a sense of how to protect
Speaker 1: the child and the type of things. But what you're
Speaker 1: talking about this common sense and when you explain it.
Speaker 3: So body safety is like we've got body safety rules.
Speaker 3: My privates are my privates. Someone's allowed to touch my privates.
Speaker 3: I'm not allowed touch other people's privates. You know, if
Speaker 3: I say no, adults and other people should respect that.
Speaker 3: You know, it's all about you know, just respecting yourself
Speaker 3: and respecting other people. And that's something we should all
Speaker 3: be taught from a really young age, right, And we
Speaker 3: probably wouldn't be having the issues with consent and all
Speaker 3: of this if we were taught it from birth.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So some of the body safety lessons are about early
Speaker 3: warning signs, and I'm not sure it's in my book
Speaker 3: and it's in these cards. So early warning signs are
Speaker 3: the feelings we get. We call them gut feelings right
Speaker 3: where in your body you feel unsafe or safe.
Speaker 2: But in order for a child to.
Speaker 3: Understand what they're feeling, we need to help them learn
Speaker 3: what that is. So when I was teaching my daughter,
Speaker 3: for instance, she would say I don't feel you know,
Speaker 3: I feel sick, for instance, and that's a common thing
Speaker 3: parents hear from their children. And I would say, Okay,
Speaker 3: where are you feeling sick? What feels sick? And she
Speaker 3: would say, I have butterflies and my tummy or I
Speaker 3: feel sick, or my legs or my knees are shaking,
Speaker 3: my hands are shaking, whatever I'm sweating. But there's multiple
Speaker 3: ways that we feel unsafe our body get how we
Speaker 3: respond to the stimuli of feeling unsafe and that's our
Speaker 3: early warning signs. That's telling us that don't feel safe
Speaker 3: in this moment, for instance. And to make it even
Speaker 3: more clearer, yesterday I had to go and sit on
Speaker 3: stage and talk to hundreds of people and I was
Speaker 3: quite nervous. I was excited, but nervous, right, So that
Speaker 3: was showing up in Butterflies.
Speaker 2: I had the jitters.
Speaker 3: I had a little bit of a headache because you know,
Speaker 3: that's how my body was. Yeah, those were my nerves,
Speaker 3: and I was able to understand that that's just because
Speaker 3: I was about to do something that was out of
Speaker 3: my comfort zone and exciting. We can break that down
Speaker 3: for kids so that they can understand that those feelings
Speaker 3: are either safe unsafe, and then what to do next.
Speaker 2: So that's the first part.
Speaker 1: Okay, I just holding on that part. I can see
Speaker 1: the benefit see it because if a child was being
Speaker 1: abused by someone and they felt uncomfortable, it didn't feel right.
Speaker 1: At Butterflies, I can imagine a young child just going,
Speaker 1: I don't want to go to the uncle such and
Speaker 1: such place. Why I feel sick. You're saying, give the
Speaker 1: child the language, the language to explain why. Yep, it
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: I mean at first, we're just like trying to identify
Speaker 3: those feelings. We're just going, okay, you know when we
Speaker 3: feel what does it feel like to feel safe? Or
Speaker 3: when you give when you're with mum, how does that feel?
Speaker 3: And sometimes kids will be simple as I feel warm,
Speaker 3: you know, my heart feels bigger, or however they want
Speaker 3: to describe it, or however they describe it in their body.
Speaker 3: But you know, okay, once we know what safe feels like,
Speaker 3: how does it feel when we don't feel safe? And
Speaker 3: there's a continuum from safe to unsafe. It's say, you know,
Speaker 3: safe fun to be scared, because sometimes it's fun to
Speaker 3: be scared, like yesterday, you know, my nerves were because
Speaker 3: I was about to do something exciting and scary. And
Speaker 3: then there's risking on purpose, you know, standing up in
Speaker 3: front of a you know, for some people public speaking
Speaker 3: is the worst thing that they could ever do, right,
Speaker 3: but they might have to do it because that's their
Speaker 3: job or that's something that they really want to do,
Speaker 3: So you risk on purpose, and then there's unsafe. So
Speaker 3: we teach kids that some things are fun and we
Speaker 3: do them anyway. Some things we have to do because
Speaker 3: we might have a school presentation to do. All of
Speaker 3: those feelings are valid, but if we can understand which
Speaker 3: ones they are, then we're much safer.
Speaker 1: As the children get to get older. What's the next
Speaker 1: stage that you need to provide further tools? What age
Speaker 1: are you're looking at?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so these are like I said, scaffolding, we ad
Speaker 3: So I would then also add into that safety network,
Speaker 3: who are the five people that you feel safest with,
Speaker 3: who will listen to you, believe you, and do something
Speaker 3: if you tell them, Because, sadly, in Australia, only one
Speaker 3: in three adults believe children when they tell them that
Speaker 3: they've been sexually abused.
Speaker 1: Run that figure by me again.
Speaker 2: One in three adult Australians believe children.
Speaker 1: Well, it saddens me. It doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 3: No, And so with regards to that, you know, if
Speaker 3: a child and here's the sad thing that I have
Speaker 3: from my perspective of being an interviewer and talking to children,
Speaker 3: I have to teach children or tell children if the
Speaker 3: first person doesn't listen or do anything, you need to
Speaker 3: go to the next person. I'm teaching them persistence through,
Speaker 3: don't give up on that first person because a lot
Speaker 3: of the victim survivors. I speak to the first person
Speaker 3: they told, told them they were lying. Shut up, We
Speaker 3: don't talk about that. They gave them a bad reaction
Speaker 3: and they never said a thing again.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's interesting. So five people like a child
Speaker 1: and what age are we talking here from? Three? Okay?
Speaker 1: Five people that you can trust if there's something wrong.
Speaker 3: Or you wouldn't explain it in that full detail. But
Speaker 3: who makes you feel safe?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 3: For the little ones, and then as they get to
Speaker 3: like school age five or six, you know, okay, who
Speaker 3: makes you feel safe and listens to you when you
Speaker 3: feel scared.
Speaker 1: And you give them the understanding that if they feel
Speaker 1: scared or don't feel safe, they can tell this person
Speaker 1: that person, or that you can tell all of them
Speaker 1: or any one of them. How do you explain that, Well,
Speaker 1: you just.
Speaker 3: You ask the child to explain who they feel safe with,
Speaker 3: and then you get them. They get to name who
Speaker 3: they feel safe with. We can't tell them that because
Speaker 3: we could say, hey, go and speak to uncle.
Speaker 1: Uncle could do the offender, yeah, and he could.
Speaker 3: Be the one who's abusing them all about to abuse them.
Speaker 3: So we don't want to give them the idea, you know,
Speaker 3: we might suggest people, but ultimately it's their choice. And
Speaker 3: then as an adult or parent, we then go on
Speaker 3: to speak to that person say, hey, we're teaching body
Speaker 3: safety in our family and these are the lessons we're
Speaker 3: talking about. And if my little girl comes to you
Speaker 3: and says, hey, I don't feel safe around this person
Speaker 3: or this at this moment, you know they've named you
Speaker 3: as a safe person. Your job as a safe person
Speaker 3: is to listen to them and help them and do
Speaker 3: something about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it's twofold. It's giving the kid and then
Speaker 1: giving the heads up to the people safe person. Ye okay,
Speaker 1: what next?
Speaker 3: So the other things is private versus public, as we've discussed,
Speaker 3: and then secrets versus surprises. So secrets are you know,
Speaker 3: as we know, predators and pedophiles will use secrets as
Speaker 3: a way to keep their secret that.
Speaker 1: This is our little secret secret.
Speaker 3: Don't tell anyone. If you tell anyone, I'll go to jail.
Speaker 3: If you tell anyone, the police will take you away,
Speaker 3: Child Protection will take you away. So we need to
Speaker 3: help children understand that secrets or safe secrets, for instance,
Speaker 3: are you know secrets are about Hey, what what are
Speaker 3: we getting dad for Christmas?
Speaker 2: It's a secret.
Speaker 3: We're gonna we're going to get him this. There's a
Speaker 3: timeline involved, it ends it does you know? Avenge And
Speaker 3: it's a happy secret, right, secrets should be happy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it might be, oh, guess what, mum's having a baby,
Speaker 3: but we're not telling anyone right now.
Speaker 1: So you're breaking it down between the secret or the
Speaker 1: happy secret.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the safe secret and then you know,
Speaker 3: and surprises basically so and then an unsafe secret. Basically
Speaker 3: some their early warning signs are being triggered because something's
Speaker 3: happening that they don't want to. They feel unsafe in
Speaker 3: that secret. And also there's no timeline involved it. Can
Speaker 3: you know, they don't get to choose when that ends.
Speaker 3: Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does make sense. It does make sense.
Speaker 3: And then that's just some of the things that we teach.
Speaker 3: But those three lessons or four lessons are really important.
Speaker 1: I'm just looking back at what the bad parents.
Speaker 2: No, you weren't you?
Speaker 1: Like everything that there's been being said. It makes so
Speaker 1: much sense when you explain it.
Speaker 2: And it's not hard.
Speaker 1: It's not hard. It's not hard. It's just it's basic parenting,
Speaker 1: isn't it?
Speaker 3: Well, it is, but you know, we've got to remember
Speaker 3: that we come from generations where no one talked and
Speaker 3: no one spoke, and you've seen or not heard, don't
Speaker 3: We don't backchat, we don't talk to our parents. We
Speaker 3: don't say anything even you know, having conversations with my
Speaker 3: parents now, like they go, they're still in that generation
Speaker 3: where they don't talk about their feelings and emotions. So
Speaker 3: it's no wonder we are struggling with these lessons.
Speaker 1: And some of the saddest stories I've heard on here
Speaker 1: on the podcast is where people have been abused and
Speaker 1: they've gone to get help and the person doesn't help them,
Speaker 1: doesn't believe them, and then they've just yeah they're lost.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does more damage.
Speaker 3: And I had someone to share with me the other
Speaker 3: day that they were sexually abused by an uncle and
Speaker 3: when they told their mum, they got slapped across the
Speaker 3: face and told never, we do not talk about this
Speaker 3: ever again. Like honestly, that's the type of thing you
Speaker 3: were talking about at the start, about why can't we
Speaker 3: charge people with that? But you know the other thing
Speaker 3: that not being able to share that with a safe
Speaker 3: adult or with someone with the person that's meant to
Speaker 3: protect you and being basically told to shut up and
Speaker 3: don't say anything. Is that negligence and that neglect basically
Speaker 3: does more damage than the abuse of I could.
Speaker 1: Well when I said some of the sayest moments, that's okay,
Speaker 1: I understand. There's an the fender, there's a victim, and
Speaker 1: then the poor victim, a child, is asking for help
Speaker 1: from someone they thought they could trust, and they get
Speaker 1: a response like that, You just articulate.
Speaker 3: Them, and then what happens is they never say it again.
Speaker 3: They go through life, they struggle, and they never get
Speaker 3: a real chance to heal. And I probably flew through
Speaker 3: that stat but twenty four years is the average of
Speaker 3: first disclosure. They might have tried to tell someone at
Speaker 3: the start, but then they were rebutted, minimized, told to
Speaker 3: go away, and so they've never said it again and
Speaker 3: they go through their life like that.
Speaker 1: Doesn't that say a lot about the impact of the
Speaker 1: offense too. There's not many offenses that you carry as
Speaker 1: a victim of an offense at twenty four years later,
Speaker 1: that's when you have the courage to come out and
Speaker 1: talk about or not courage, but that's when you're ready
Speaker 1: to talk about it.
Speaker 3: How it just minutes longer. Ninety nine percent of men
Speaker 3: never tell anyone not good figures.
Speaker 1: So we're going to try and make a difference. Look,
Speaker 1: we might we might take a break now when we
Speaker 1: get back, I want to talk about the adolescent years
Speaker 1: because that's yeah, that's a whole new ball game too,
Speaker 1: isn't it Like the world is completely completely changed for
Speaker 1: adolescents and there's a lot that can be learned there.
Speaker 1: And we're also going to talk about what happens if
Speaker 1: you suspect someone is a child who's been sexually abused,
Speaker 1: or you suspect someone, and what happens if you actually
Speaker 1: take it to the police, and what the processes are.
Speaker 1: So I look, I'm sitting here sort the gobsmack thinking
Speaker 1: this shit. But there's so much that you've explained, and
Speaker 1: I look back. That's why I'm sort of questioning my
Speaker 1: own parenthood in that I'm thinking that would have been
Speaker 1: such a safe thing and something good to provide children with.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and the good thing is once you hear it,
Speaker 3: and once you know it, you can't unknow it, so
Speaker 3: you can make the changes as you go forward.
Speaker 1: And look, I asked this question before we take a break.
Speaker 1: You've got so many people reaching out to you. Are
Speaker 1: you getting overwhelmed with it?
Speaker 2: Sometimes?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have to take breaks, but it's an honor
Speaker 3: to be that person that people.
Speaker 2: Trust with this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, well, it's very impressive how you're educating us,
Speaker 1: and I have people that are listening and getting the
Speaker 1: same thing that I'm getting from this. It's just a
Speaker 1: very practical way of approaching the problem that impacts on
Speaker 1: so many people. Let's have a break and we'll be
Speaker 1: back shortly.
Speaker 2: Fantastic cheers.