Bernadette McMenamin Child Wise Interview

Bernadette McMenamin Child Wise Interview

Bernadette McMenamin AO is the Chief Executive Officer of Child Wise™ Limited, a child protection charity with a local and global mission based in Melbourne, Australia.

Bernadette has a Masters in International Social Work and is highly regarded in Australia and overseas as a successful advocate and innovator in the prevention of child sexual abuse. She has devoted 22 years of her life to the issue.

In 1992 Bernadette became a founding member of ECPAT International in Thailand - a global campaign against child sexual exploitation. The campaign now exists in over 70 countries. In 1993 Bernadette returned to Australia and established ECPAT in Australia (now known as Child Wise Limited). As the National Director of Child Wise, Bernadette has been responsible for developing innovative child abuse prevention programs, managing extensive and multifaceted education and training programs and advocacy campaigns against global child sexual abuse and exploitation. She has also been responsible for many "firsts"; including successful advocacy campaigns which have led to significant political, legal and social changes. Of particular note is the enactment of the Child Sex Tourism Law in 1994 to make sex with children overseas a prosecutable offence in Australia.

Bernadette is a qualified trainer and has developed numerous child abuse prevention training programs that have been delivered successfully in Australia and overseas. She has conducted thousands of workshops and has trained extensively internationally including: Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Fiji, PNG, New Zealand, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Under Bernadette's leadership Child Wise is highly regarded for its innovation, best practice programs and effective child abuse prevention work. In recognition of these achievements Child Wise has received the following awards:
2005 Australian Crime and Violence Prevention Award (Certificate of Merit)
2003 Overall winner of the National Child Protection Awards (for the Choose With Care® program)
2002 Victorian Crime Prevention Award (Certificate of Merit)
1999 Australian Council for Overseas Aid Human Rights Award
1996 Australian Human Rights Award
1995 The Australian Tourism Award
1993 Anti Slavery Award

Bernadette has been recognised for her contribution to the protection of children from sexual exploitation. In 2004 she won the Victorian finalist for Australian of the Year and was awarded the Order of Australia (AO) in June of that year. In 2005, Bernadette won the Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Social Entrepreneur category for the Southern Region of Australia and in 2006 was a Victorian finalist in the Telstra Business Women's Award (Hudson Community and Government Award).

Interview with Bernadette McMenamin

Question: Can you talk about one of your biggest achievements over the course of your career?

Bernadette McMenamin: There have been many, but I think the biggest achievement is creating global awareness of the sexual exploitation of children and laws to prohibit them and not just in Australia but in many other countries were we have been responsible for changing the laws. I was involved in setting up the global movement and that is the greatest achievement.


Question: What inspired you to become involved with Child Wise?

Bernadette McMenamin: I created Child Wise. I was a social worker, working on housing estates for 15 years and I was seeing social change at a micro level and seeing how you can change communities and I really believed that my skills, knowledge and love for Asia would be beneficial. I used to backpack throughout Asia and see a lot of sex tourism and I could see it was getting worse and I would ring up international development agencies and they would say "we don't take anyone without experience". I was an experienced social worker and had been working for 15 years but I put my name down as an Australian volunteer instead. They wanted to send me to Samoa for a Gender program which didn't interest me; children are so much more disadvantaged. Eventually a job came up in Thailand which was setting up a global campaign to end child prostitute, pornography and trafficking - I took that and worked in Thailand setting up a global network and then I came back to Australia to set up Child Wise.

My inspiration was three things:
the anger that I had that these guys were getting away and nothing was being done about it, as there were no laws
secondly, that people were ignoring it or being ignorant when seeing it as a tourist sideshow
and thirdly, I believed that we could change it.


Question: What is a typical day like at Child Wise?

Bernadette McMenamin: Madness! It is madness, it is really, really busy! We could be training, writing submissions, taking calls from people who have been abused or concerned about their child being abused or even raising funds because we are not your typical group so we don't get your typical finance.


Question: What's have you learnt?

Bernadette McMenamin: What have I learn!? I could say 'never give up'! I think the most important thing to learn is that everything can be changed, everything is built by bricks and you have to knock down the bricks, brick by brick. The more that you continue to put pressure on, the more bricks you knock down.


Question: Do you regularly set goals for your Child Wise? How do you go about achieving them?

Bernadette McMenamin: We have a strategic plan but it is always organic and we work as a group - we are very much a team. As a group we regularly have sit down team meetings and we have a strategic plan every three years but usually by then it is already happening. Now we have about 12 programs in Cambodia, two community centres and 14 staff, we want to replicate that village based model were we tackle trafficking at the grass roots level rather than the way the government is tackling it now; which is through government to government.

We have been trying government to government because we've been told you have to work with a government but nothing happens and nothing changes - it hasn't changed anything in 20 years. Now without government funding and funding from the Body Shop campaign that we run we have been able to setup community centres, soup kitchens for children and sponsor children to go to school. We want to target children all through the region who are living in high risk areas.


Question: Can you talk about one of the major challenges you have overcome?

Bernadette McMenamin: It is still a challenge and we haven't overcome it, it is money. Part of the problem is that child sexual abuse is taboo, corporate are frightened of being associated with it, it scares people and until we can freely talk about it, that will be the biggest challenge.

The second challenge is that we have worked with governments that don't understand about how to prevent child abuse. Often they don't listen to you when you've been working for 35 years and they're being advised from someone who is just out of University; unfortunately it is not a government lead by knowledge.

These are the two biggest barriers and funding affects both of them. Children are not seen as important because they don't vote, if they were voters they would have political power. People think children have a lot of rights, in their society, but they don't.


Question: What do you enjoy most about conducting workshops and training overseas?

Bernadette McMenamin: I enjoy interacting with people and children during workshops as well as the travel. We do a lot of work across Asia Pacific and its so much fun! Here we workshop all the time and it's a lot more serious, when you're in Asia you play a lot of games. It's not only about imparting information but seeing the change come from the information and learning from them about the culture and the culture adaptability.


Question: Child Wise has received a large range of different awards; how does this make you feel?

Bernadette McMenamin: Generally it is nice. The award is for the work of the team and it is always surprising when you get an award, Australian of the Year knocked me blind! For me, I don't play the game, I don't go to cocktail parties or go out networking, and I possibly don't use it to the best advantage. Our credibility speaks for itself; we don't have to justify it to anyone. The awards show that our work, works. Governments need to look and see that year, after year, after year Child Wise has won awards by their peers, the UN and independent bodies, obviously the model is successful, let's support them!


Child Wise is Australia's leading international child protection charity. At Child Wise they know that the biggest threat to children's futures is abuse. It destroys lives. This is why they are dedicated to protecting children from abuse and exploitation in Australia, Asia and the Pacific.

Child Wise's programs seek to prevent child abuse by providing greater awareness and understanding; as well as providing the tools and strategies for individuals, organisations and communities to address these issues. The programs are child-focused, and informed by a fundamental belief that children have a right to physical and psychological safety, and that we as individuals, communities and governments have the capacity to protect children.

Through counseling, advocacy, community education, research and training, Child Wise works to eradicate abuse and enhance the well being of children.

Their commitment to research into emerging abuse trends and new risks to children ensures that the programs remain proactive, effective and responsive.

Child Wise's team of specialists and administrative staff is led by the CEO, Bernadette McMenamin AO and is governed by a Board of Directors comprising experts in children's issues and senior business management. Bernadette has a Masters in International Social Work and is highly regarded in Australia and overseas as a successful advocate and innovator in the prevention of child sexual abuse. Her passion and commitment to the community has been recognised through a number of prestigious awards. In 2004 she won the Victorian finalist for Australian of the Year and was awarded the Order of Australia (AO) in June of that year. In 2005, Bernadette won the Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the Social Entrepreneur category for the Southern Region of Australia and in 2006 was a finalist in the Telstra Business Women's Award (Hudson Community and Government Award).

Child Wise employs professionals who have worked with both children who have been sexually abused and people who sexually abuse Australian children. Their professionals have over 75 years experience (combined) in the field of child protection.

Child Wise is highly regarded for its innovation, best practice programs and effective child abuse prevention work. In recognition of these achievements Child Wise has received the following awards:
2005 Australian Crime and Violence Prevention Award (Certificate of Merit)
2003 Overall winner of the National Child Protection Awards (for the Choose With Care® program)
2002 Victorian Crime Prevention Award (Certificate of Merit)
1999 Australian Council for Overseas Aid Human Rights Award
1996 Australian Human Rights Award
1995 The Australian Tourism Award
1993 Anti Slavery Award

Every child deserves the right start in life. For further information about all Child Wise initiatives and programs, visit www.childwise.net

Interview by Brooke Hunter