Shattered Dreams in Paradise:
A Reckoning with (VET) Vocational Education and Training & Adoption Failures
After nearly 25 years dedicated to the VET sector, I now find myself looking down the barrel at a system that continues to disregard my lived experience as an adoptee. Despite my efforts to advocate for trauma-informed, inclusive education, the curriculum still overlooks the voices of adoptees, perpetuating a cycle of marginalization in the very fields meant to provide care and support. This dismissal is more than personal — it’s a painful reminder that the system itself remains unwilling to address and validate the real experiences that shape so many lives.
I was in Bali, of all places, when the email arrived. It seemed inconceivable, almost absurd, that I’d been holding onto hope and a little faith as my career dissolved in a moment. That company, with which I had been closely tied, had quietly closed its doors, freezing my wages and leaving me stranded. I had once trusted them with my credentials to support their bid in registering the Diploma and Advanced Diploma in Screen and Media. Instead, they weaponized my qualifications as a tool in the 2016 VET FEE-HELP scandal — a fraud scheme that misappropriated millions and left countless careers and dreams in limbo. The blow fell just as the scars from my son’s battle with brain cancer were beginning to heal, and my own experience with adoption, too, was starting to unravel; estrangement soon followed. The weight of it all was crushing.
There’s something uniquely wounding in knowing your trust was exploited; your identity reduced to a series of qualifications on paper while the human experience behind it all was ignored. But while the VET debacle was damning, it didn’t end there. In the years that followed, I immersed myself in advocating for something more personal and, perhaps, even more ignored: the need for trauma-informed training around adoption and forced adoption. The lack of awareness and the void left by public silence on adoption is like a shadow cast across Australia’s vocational landscape, seen only by those who live beneath it.
Since early last year, I’ve been in conversation with HumanAbility, pushing for an adoption curriculum within VET. The irony is as cutting as it is surreal: the only mention of adoption within the entire curriculum occurs in the Certificate IV in Greyhound Racing, as if human lives, histories, and trauma were as inconsequential as a footnote in the training of racing dogs. This misplaced nod to adoption feels less like an oversight and more like a whisper of disdain.
Over the past year and a half, I’ve sent emails, reached out to policymakers, and, after months of near silence, finally saw a faint response. The Australian Government released an online course on Forced Adoption Awareness for the aged care and community service sectors. But there was little solace to be found here; the course, non-accredited and limited in reach, seemed more like a hollow gesture than a meaningful step forward. It felt like a substitute for acknowledgment, a bare minimum that avoided the comprehensive, accredited approach I’d envisioned for real, lasting change.
Had my background with the VET sector been one of mutual respect, I might have trusted this latest initiative as a start. Instead, after years of failed promises and bureaucratic machinations, I’ve become painfully aware of the system’s indifference. The government’s so-called progress in adoption and forced adoption training feels like a mere wave of acknowledgment — a faint ripple meant to quell dissent, not to bring real reform to sectors like early childhood education, aged care, and individual support. I look at what could be done — a rigorous, accredited curriculum that provides trauma-informed training to those who can truly make a difference — and feel the weight of how far we are from that ideal.
Now, as I reflect from my home in Bali, the silence from Australian officials remains deafening. With the NDIS soon to withdraw its support and adoption advocates left scrambling for footing, my pleas for comprehensive, recognised training continue to hover unanswered. Each letter and email sent into the ether, each phone call unanswered, leaves me, and others like me, in a strange place — a place where human stories become whispers, where whole lives and the trauma they bear are caught in the web of an indifferent system.
And here, I write — if only to remind myself that we’re more than forgotten footnotes in a curriculum, more than credentials on a form and that our voices deserve more than mere whispers in an all-consuming void.
Seeking Industry Support and a Platform for My Voice
In my journey through the challenges of vocational education and personal trauma, I’ve come to realise that my voice deserves to be valued and appreciated. I am actively seeking industry support and collaboration with organizations that prioritize trauma-informed practices, particularly in sectors like early childhood education, aged care, and community services.
However, I must be clear: if my needs for genuine recognition and support are not met, I have no interest in pursuing further involvement. The time and effort I’ve invested in advocacy should not be met with indifference or superficial gestures. I am looking for meaningful partnerships that acknowledge the complexities of lived experience and advocate for comprehensive training programs. If this vision aligns with yours, I welcome the opportunity to connect.
Otherwise, I see no value in continuing this journey alone.
Can I please ask everyone to support my comments on LinkedIn. It has come to light at my work in bringing adoption and forced adoption to. vocational education in Australia has been hijacked by DSS. Pulling the rug out from under me with all the work I’ve done over the last year and a half with human ability! They secretly published their own forced option education that is not vocational education, accredited, leaving me without credit for my work. Full details here –
