Homeless At Fifteen, To Social Worker: Meet The Student Using Her History Of Trauma To Help Children

This post is presented in partnership with CQUniversity.

By the time she was 15, Regina Richardson had moved school 18 times.

School number 18 was her last – at least, as far as her teenage years were concerned. Not long after leaving, she was living on the streets of Darwin.

“We were a very transient family. It didn’t really give me an opportunity to [finish school],” she told Student Edge.

If it wasn’t for the intervention of her uncle, who moved from Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory to share a place with her in Darwin, Regina might not have made it to schools 19 and 20 later in life.

“He got a place for me to stay with him and said, ‘You have a choice. You can go to school, or you can work. What is it gonna be?’”

Regina chose work: social work.

In the years since being homeless, Regina has volunteered for disadvantaged groups, given her time writing for the disabled and even worked for Parkerville Family Services in Geraldton, where she’s seen, in her words, “the most horrific things you would imagine.”

“My grandmother was an elder in Geraldton and a very well respected elder, and as long as I can remember, advocating for others, and was a bit of an activist,” she said, citing her inspiration.

“I come from a background of complex trauma myself and I saw how it can just take over your life and you can be quite consumed by the trauma. When you’re in the state, it’s very difficult to see the light; to find a way out.

"[Young children] need these skills and these tools to learn how to be resilient and to cope with what they’ve experienced and to be taught that it doesn’t have to define you."

However, there is one major obstacle for Geraldton's locals (with a population of 35,000, approximately 10 per cent of whom are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander): as of this writing, there is only one degree-certified social worker of indigenous descent (according to the Department for Child Protection and Family Support).

“That’s of great concern to me,” Regina said.

After taking time to start a family – Regina has three children, aged 14, 10 and eight – she returned to study at the Durack Institute of Technology, before seeking her Bachelor of Social Work at CQUniversity; school #18.

“My five year plan is to have a therapeutic service that will deliver alternative therapies to children, because at the moment we don’t have any of those sorts of services in Geraldton,” she said.

“We’re very limited in Geraldton. There’s a real need for it.”

In her first year of study at CQUniversity, she was awarded a year’s credit for her prior work in social services. Without it, she would never have been able to seek a tertiary degree.

“We sort of take study for granted. For someone like me to come into a university environment and be expected to write at a university level, you can’t even imagine the amount of stress that has caused,” Regina laughed.

“The last three years I’ve started studying because I didn’t have the opportunity to do so as a child. I didn’t have a home, so I couldn’t.”

Throughout much of our chat, Regina laughs in good humour, despite the difficulties she’s faced.

If this is one of those tools of resilience, it must work wonders.

Last year, Regina was named WA Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Student of the Year at the WA Training Awards.

In twelve months' time, she’ll have that Social Work degree and become Geraldton’s second degree-certified Aboriginal social worker.

“I’ve always had an interest in others and assisting others, but you need to have that ticket [she laughs] which I’m so desperately seeking.”

Photo supplied by the WA Training Awards.

Open up your universe and consider a degree at CQUniversity, just like Regina. For more information, go to cqu.edu.au