Vale Chris Mackey and a White Balloon Day Reflection

Over the past year my physical condition and mental health have become more troubled than before, while the uplifting support received from Healing and Hope has been constant as always. Kate and Tanya maintain a level of care and practical help that are heartening at bleak times. Their unfailing concern has given back a personal trust in representatives of Geelong Grammar School through Healing and Hope, that had been lacking in me since schooldays in the 1960s. I am very grateful for their energy and initiative on my behalf, and for the patience and sensitivity in their approach to someone undergoing acute as well as chronic difficulties. The reliable generosity of Healing and Hope in provision of this care and for the financial support to receive specialist treatment in recent weeks, gives a truthfully relatable aspect to the abiding values of GGS as an exceptional institution and community. - May 2025

In 2025 Healing and Hope introduced The Wellbeing Paddock, Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP), to its specialised suite of healing opportunities for survivors and their families.

If in the past you’d suggested to me that having your house cleaned once a fortnight could change life, I might have raised a dubious eyebrow. But for the last 10 months, since Healing and Hope began covering the costs for a cleaner to come to the home my parents now share with my brother, I have learned that it can be genuinely transformative. It’s not easy for people of my parents’ generation to accept this sort of help. Still less for people who have always been the givers, not receivers, of support. My parents were always the sort of people who helped other people – active in our community, providing foster care to kids at risk, my mum doing values-based work, dad an elder in the church. But that got harder over the years. My brother was a beautiful child. My grandfather’s favorite mate, my adored little brother, always in a pack of cousins or neighbourhood kids. Extroverted, funny, clever. Until, too often, he wasn’t. Inexplicably, he began to change, and no-one could understand why, despite the many professionals my parents took him to see. Several years ago, he moved in with my parents, now in their 80s. By then, they had already raised two of his kids. The life they had imagined for themselves had long since evaporated. When I first learned, about ten years ago, of the abuse my brother had suffered, it all made sense. And as someone who has worked for decades in community organisations, including on sexual abuse, I wished that we had known earlier. We could have done so much if we had understood what was driving my brother’s behaviour. As it was, the process of sharing what had been done to him, and negotiating the compensation process, was harrowing. My brother had what he describes as a breakdown. Through all this, my parents continued to love and care for my brother, and to stand in as grandparents to their four great-grandchildren. While their friends have enjoyed long retirements, they are still taking kids to school and picking them up, their financial reserves long since gone, along with their energy, and, too often, their faith in the world. Last year, my mother had a number of falls, incapacitating her. The demands of family continued, and their home became more and more out of control. Living and working hundreds of kilometers away, I could not be there to help them. My brother continues to strive to overcome the hardships that beset him, and for this and many other reasons I continue to love him deeply, but he can rarely contribute to the order of the home. My parents could no longer keep up with housework. They were ashamed to have people over, becoming even more isolated. We tried to organise help, but in their small regional town, it was all just too hard. Then, one day, Tanya from Healing and Hope, asked me how, really, things were going. It was one of many communications I have had with Tanya over the years. She said Healing and Hope could help with a cleaner. I couldn’t believe it. We found a wonderful cleaner, and the house was transformed. And with it, my mum. ‘It’s such a relief’, she says to me. And I know she doesn’t just mean having a home she isn’t ashamed of. It’s not just having someone coming to the house who she knows really cares about her. It’s not just that she doesn’t feel like such a failure. It’s partly because there is some part of this school that sees my family as human, as deserving of compassion, that understands how much we have tried not to be defeated. This is what donations to Healing and Hope can do – facilitate vital practical support but so much more than this - hope and healing. - May 2025

My contact with Healing and Hope has been both positive, and, as the name suggests, healing. Financial compensation is an important piece of reconciliation with victims, but recognition is as important. Money means different things to different people, but acknowledgement is universal and life changing. Healing and Hope’s contact with me has been driven by them. A constant and (for me wonderful) reminder that someone cares. It’s a healing medicine that has bankable efficacy for me. Healing and Hope keeps me in contact with the school (something I treasure) as a restored and protected person. As a result, I’ve been emboldened to invite (and welcome) my GGS experience back into my life. Plus… they’re lovely and capable people. - May 2025

Dear Kate and Tanya, Thank you both so much for organising the Healing and Hope luncheon and catch up for mothers and siblings. I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to attend. This was my second time attending a Healing and Hope event for family members of students who suffered abuse while at Geelong Grammar School. It’s difficult, hard, depressing – and also really rewarding, worthwhile and reassuring to attend these events. As some of the mothers have now seen each other at previous H&H events, you can see that while walking in with a heavy heart, some of the mothers look forward to catching up with others who are living the same experiences. It is a nice opportunity to speak about our heartaches with others, who know the background and because of their shared experiences, can understand these things so much better. I felt I could speak freely, without judgement or the risk of shared confidences escaping. I felt heard and understood. For years, I felt silenced. I couldn’t talk about my brother’s abuse, because he couldn’t talk about it. He doesn’t want to acknowledge what happened; he doesn’t want to engage with the school in any way. And yet for years, it was the elephant in the room. My brother would talk about things that had happened at school almost every time we met, as if his time at school were the only lived experience of his life – and yet he was over 40 years old. My parents said we couldn’t talk about the abuse he suffered at school, because it is his story, not ours, and because he was not, is not, ready to talk about it, or willing, or able to. And so we have carried the silent shame, the weight of silence, as well as the weight of caring for him in what became an increasingly heavy workload for me as a sister in the years before I moved overseas. It was only when my brother spoke the classic suicide type thoughts that I snapped, and called the school, and said they had to know, that he had to be one of the boys who was counted. I am so grateful for all the help you have both given me since then, and for the work you have done to support others in our places. We might not have spoken up during the Royal Commission 10 years ago, but we knew it was happening. My mother followed it closely. It would be years before we could talk out loud. It was so helpful to hear Michal Magazanik speak of the history of litigation, of the engagement of the school at different stages and the changes that have occurred over the years. In the discussion that followed Michael’s talk, I spoke of my realisation that it is only because of the work that all those around the table had done before, that my family could be there now. They say that we stand on the shoulders of giants, but I prefer to think that my family and I follow those who have walked ahead of us in deep snow. The effort, the loneliness of being the one in front, each footstep pushing down through the fresh, untrodden snow – it takes so much longer, it takes so much more effort. And with that effort, we see both the path to follow, and that we are not alone. We are reminded of those who have gone before us. When you speak with other mothers and siblings, please give my heartfelt thanks for their bravery, their honesty, their support and their openness. I appreciate so much the opportunity to meet with them all, and I also want to thank them for looking out for my mum, who has shouldered so much over so many years. It means a lot to me to know you are all caring for her, while she continues to care for my brother, as I do too. With my love, and many thanks. - May 2025

Healing and Hope Manager, Tanya Bishop, welcomed members of the Healing and Hope community and special guests to the annual Mothers’ Therapeutic Retreat Day in February 2025. Her welcome acknowledged the achievements and invaluable contributions of the past 10 years. I and Directors of the Board of Healing and Hope also acknowledge the progress made in supporting survivors and their families and the contributions that have brought about significant and positive change within our community. We are proud to be a part of this innovative and authentic initiative. We are grateful for the role of donors to our meaningful work – without you, we could not continue to deliver this crucial support. Please join me in reading this acknowledgement from Tanya’s welcome. Philip Crutchfield KC Chair of the Board of Healing and Hope