Annemarie’s story

WHY POWER TO THE KIDS MATTERS TO ME

In 2001, I boarded a flight from Amsterdam to Sydney. It was me, my backpack and my teenage dream to work with The Royal Flying Doctors. The TV series was an absolute hit in The Netherlands and I was determined to do my last elective placement as a medical student in Broken Hill. I still remember the overwhelming mixed feelings of freedom, courage and nerves while getting on that plane. My mother always told me to ‘try things in life, and worst case scenario would be just to return home if things don’t work out’. For some reason that always stuck with me and made me feel safe, confident and supported.

So here I am now, I met and married my true Aussie love, Sam, and we have three beautiful children; Hannah (8), Emily (6) and Ruben (5).

Nowadays, I am a GP, but mostly work in a busy Emergency Department. I enjoy the contact we have as health professionals with patients. Part of my work is being involved with child and family emergency presentations.
I experience firsthand the emotions families deal with on a daily basis with our three lovely children and I am committed to try the best I can and believe everybody else is doing the same.

Schools are referring children to the ED for a mental health assessment because of self-harm or behavioural challenges at the school. It has become more apparent there is a growing lack of primary care and mental health
services to support a large number of families with ramifications for the schools as well.

In 2021, I was able to launch the ‘Primary Ethics’ program at MullawayPrimary School as an alternative to Scripture lessons. This has been an amazing experience as it gave me an opportunity to become a volunteer at the school and get involved with ethics and critical thinking. I am truly enjoying the teaching and have been positively surprised by how the children have developed their ethical reasoning.

I met Dr Nicola Holmes in 2011 when she was a medical educator for the GP training program. I have always enjoyed listening to her and I still remember she brought her own children as ‘examples’ to a Paediatric teaching session. We connected again in Coffs Harbour in 2021 and she told me about the parent information talks she has been facilitating for years at the local schools. After she presented her talk at Mullaway School, there were requests for ‘more’ and ‘again’.

Greg Williams was at that talk and, with his strong advocacy of kids’ well-being, local connections and business knowledge, has been an important part of the launch of our program. ‘Power To The Kids’ has evolved into a parent and teacher-focused program that distinguishes itself by targeting specific topics, based on our current community needs and facilitated by our local experienced health professionals.