Wendy Hawkins - Treasurer and Victorian Team Leader

Wendy completed her Diploma of Community Services by doing her final placement at Child Protection. Whilst finishing her placement Wendy decided not to work at the Department, instead she took on a foster care role for one of the young people she had been working with.

Whilst becoming a stay at home mum again, Wendy began her Double Bachelor in Behavioural Science and Psychology, which she is still undertaking. Wendy has now had this young person in her care for seven years and took on the care of this young person’s sibling four years ago (now a mum of nine).

Over the past seven years as a foster carer Wendy has been shocked and dismayed at the level of abuse and neglect within the system itself. Wendy has witnessed the distress and extra layers on trauma that these precious little people go through whilst navigating the out of home care system, giving her the drive and determination to make sure somebody creates positive change in the system and holds the people in power accountable for their poor decision making.

Wendy was on a mission to engage in some form of change when she came across Tony, Nadia and Avery on the Child Protection Party’s Facebook page and joined the journey on the spot.

Wendy also has a passion to make sure that the Indigenous population of Australia is consulted and catered for in this journey to make the system more positive, transparent and accountable. That brought Wendy into the position of policy development, putting her in he correct role to make sure that children of all cultures and all abilities are accounted for in the policy development at the Child Protection Party.