The Tuesday Morning Show with Alex Hyndman Hill

Protecting our Young: Talking Child Safety with Bravehearts CEO Alison Geale

• Hyndman Hill Media • Season 1 • Episode 17

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What if the safety of your child could be enhanced by just a simple conversation? 

This week Alex talks to Alison Geale, the CEO of Bravehearts, the a charity aimed at protecting Australian children from sexual abuse, ahead of Bravehearts Day. They discuss the day dedicated to raising awareness and educating the public about child sexual abuse prevention, that has now been in action for over a quarter of a century. 

Alison passionately shares resources available on the Bravehearts website which can guide parents in initiating these crucial chats. She imparts essential advice for those dealing with a crisis, outlining how to cope with initial shock, seek help, and embark on the healing journey through therapy. They also discuss the impact of family support and robust counselling in aiding children and families affected by abuse.

For support or advice contact the National Alcohol and Other Drug Hotline 1800 250 015

Alex Hyndman Hill:

here with you on the Tuesday morning show. It is 21 minutes past nine and I have on the line with me now Alison Gill, who is the CEO of Brave Hearts, the children's charity protecting Aussie kids from child sexual abuse. Good morning, alison.

Alison Geale:

Good morning. How are you?

Alex Hyndman Hill:

I'm great. Thank you so much for joining us now. It's perfect timing, because tomorrow is Brave Hearts Day. Now tell us a little bit about tomorrow. What's the significance of the 30th of August?

Alison Geale:

Well, brave Hearts Day is has been going now for over a quarter of a century, can you believe? And it's a national awareness day dedicated to the prevention and treatment of child sexual abuse. And on Brave Hearts Day, we take that one day to try and educate as many people as we can about child sexual abuse and how to prevent it, and also to raise much needed funds so that we can continue doing all of our great work in educating, empowering and protecting people from it.

Alex Hyndman Hill:

Yeah, absolutely so. The kind of the front end of things is is protecting people and making these things, making sure these things never, never happen to children. So what can people who like parents, like myself, and people who who have children in their care what can they be doing? Obviously, looking at your website you've got an awful lot of resources out there but educating ourselves to, to, to make sure that we can help protect these kids.

Alison Geale:

Yeah, I think in an ideal world as a parent and I'm a parent who think, goodness, you know, I'm okay about the road safety, personal hygiene, teaching our kids what food to eat, etc. It's really, really a tough topic for a lot of parents and one that a lot of parents just subconsciously kind of go oh you know, I don't know how to bring up, I don't understand it enough. So we really urge parents, carers, so anyone with kids in their lives, to treat this like road safety, to treat it just like nutritional guidance and also personal hygiene, and that is by having age appropriate conversations with your kids, about having these difficult conversations about personal safety. So, without fear, and make sure, making sure they're age appropriate. So if you head on to the BraveHearts website, which is braveheartsorgau, you can find all the information you need and great resources to just get you educated, because it's really tough to have these conversations if you feel nervous or, you know, insecure about how much knowledge you have on it.

Alex Hyndman Hill:

Yeah, absolutely and it's, and it's so good to have those conversations, like you say, a child appropriate and age appropriate conversations as early as possible, so that if anything does happen, if the children are ever kind of concerned about anything that they do feel like they can talk to you about things, if you've opened that conversation already, they know they can come to you and they know that it's not something to be scared or ashamed or worried about talking to you about. So but what do people do if they do find themselves in crisis? If they do find themselves in a situation where they do need help, what's the first thing they can do to kind of reach out and find the help that they you know, god forbid need.

Alison Geale:

Yeah, so depending on what happens and what has happened you know after, and if it's a police matter or a child safety matter, when all of that has been sorted out, people can reach out to BraveHearts. So if you go to the BraveHearts website you'll see where you can contact us and we can help you and support you and guide you in the right direction. So that might be that you might undertake some therapy yourself or other extended members of the family might. It's really important that that happens because we know that, particularly with children, that who have been subject to child sexual abuse, if they receive fantastic family support, excellent and, you know, robust counselling that they can go on to lead normal, healthy, happy lives, and the same is true for the family that's impacted around them too.

Alex Hyndman Hill:

Absolutely, and that's why you guys come in, isn't it because you? And why tomorrow is such an important day? Because things like counselling and things like access to counselling, especially during a cost of living crisis. It is expensive and it is something that needs to be done to help people get through these things. So I'm looking on your website now making a donation. You know if you can afford it, if you have the money and you can do this. $150 helps someone go to trauma counselling so they can then access the things that you know they might not have enough on their Medicare left to kind of keep going and and they need that. So thank you so much for talking us through that and thank you for all the work that you do because it is so, so important. So tell me again the website just to make sure that people can go and have a look and make sure they can. They can give that donation if they're able.

Alison Geale:

So if they can head to braveheartsorgau and we'd be, we'd just be so grateful. Even the smallest little amount goes towards, you know, helping a child in crisis and also it's real child protection in action, absolutely yeah, just ten dollars here and ten dollars makes a difference, doesn't it?

Alex Hyndman Hill:

everything makes a difference, absolutely All right, alison. Thank you so much for for all the work that you do and, and, if you can help, please do go to the website. Tomorrow it is Braveheart's day and it's really important that we, that we can, if we're able to, please do help. Thanks, big soon.

Alison Geale:

Yeah, thank you, bye bye. We're celebrating our f-.