Patricia Corby (formerly Harris), from Tasmania, felt passionately about helping teenagers in trouble. Her Churchill Fellowship in 1978 took her to the United Kingdom to study developments in community-based treatment as an alternative to residential care, with particular reference to teenage girls. Patricia was concerned about issues affecting them such as unemployment, accommodation and promiscuity.
Patricia believes that the lessons learned from her Fellowship were not limited to the term of the Fellowship but are life-long. After her Fellowship she set up the Omaru Youth Centre in Hobart, which successfully ran after-school and holiday programs for different ages. Patricia was ‘firmly committed to all things preventative’ as she writes in her report, but when management wanted the policy to change from the preventative philosophy to all children attending having a court status (meaning ward of the state or supervision status) Patricia had the courage of her convictions. She left in order to be able to do the work she believed was most effective:
I felt that there were many families needing help and students being identified at schools as ‘at risk’ who could be assisted as a preventative measure. I thus returned to the field of education … upgrading my qualifications and working in a secondary school. Teachers are also front-line workers and here, I believed, my ideas in preventative work could be continued.
The work experience that Patricia brought combined with lessons learned on her Churchill Fellowship meant that she could perceive the various situations families were facing such as court appearances, economic struggles, housing difficulties and disabilities, and she could ‘speak their language’. Patricia could recognise problems in students and ‘encourage them to value learning and where it could take them in life.’
Excerpt from “Inspiring Australians” written by Penny Hanley (2015)
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