Nurture In Their Nature
Illawarra Mercury
Saturday June 5, 2004
Hope in a world dominated by pain can be found in an unassuming cottage sitting in a paddock near Nowra. WILLIAM VERITY talks to a former car dealer who is determined to heal old wounds.
FROM the road it doesn't look much.
The grandly named William Campbell College is a cottage set in a paddock, with another half-built cottage a few hundred metres away.
There is no sign at the gate and no clue that this is the place where an ambitious experiment to deal with one of Australia's most pressing, and least talked about social problems is about to unfold.
The 49ha Nowra property, near the HMAS Albatross naval base, is not the first location Bill Campbell has tried to heal the wounds of his past.
Raised in the tough world of boys' homes and separated from his two sisters, Campbell tried to realise his vision of a community of full-time foster parents caring for groups of siblings in a beautiful, rustic setting near Berry in 1998. But when word of the plan spread, so did the fear, and with it, opposition.
``We got run out of Berry," Campbell said, but added that the Nowra experience would be very different.
``They will see in the first six months that there are no threats here. It will just look like another family home like the rest of them around here," the successful and now retired Albion Park car dealer said.
The college is assessing the first four siblings and - if suitable - will welcome them to their new home with no fanfare later this month.
It is a big moment - not only for Campbell and his wife Dawn - but also for the two foster parents, John and Robyn, who came from Orange expecting to embark on their vocation within months, and instead waited for more than two years.
The delay came from the Department of Community Services.
The bureaucracy appeared to have difficulty issuing a licence for foster care that was not a group home - where half a dozen or more paid staff act as parents on a roster basis. And neither was it a simple foster placement - where an ordinary family adopt children whose families are too chaotic or abusive to care for them.
``Our difficulty came from the fact that we were putting forward a model that the department didn't have a philosophy for. We were saying that we wanted to raise young sibling children in an environment where they could grow up as they would in a family unit," Campbell said.
When John and Robyn - whose surname cannot be disclosed to protect the children soon to arrive - are asked what they call themselves, they spend five minutes discussing which title to use before giving up.
``Foster parents" fails to recognise their expertise - they will offer after school tuition and music teaching.
``Care givers" is too emotionally distant.
Neither title conveys the extraordinary fact that the pair agreed to commit themselves to 15 years at the college on a handshake. They will raise children they have never met and cannot reject, and on a single wage that is enough for life in rent-free accommodation, but little else.
The pair have found work where they can - Robyn is qualified in early childhood education and John is a primary school music teacher - with money supplemented from Campbell's business interests.
Advertisements for the next pair of college foster parents are about to go out, as the second cottage nears completion.
Community support is vital to the college and has raised $250,000 in cash and material assistance. The two homes worth $286,000, were donated by the Property Industry Foundation.
© 2004 Illawarra Mercury
