By Luke Voogt
Helping child-abuse survivors “tell their own story” has been the “greatest privilege” for Geelong historian Shurlee Swain.
Professor Swain became one of Geelong’s three newest members of the Order of Australia on Monday for her life’s work exposing historic institutional cruelty.
“I think what people tell me is I’m getting their stories right,” the central Geelong grandmother said on Tuesday following a history conference in Belfast.
“That validates it for them.”
After a few years as a social worker, Prof Swain began documenting the histories of local organisations that cared for children.
“Through meeting people who had grown up in those institutions I learned the darker side,” she said.
“A lot of them confronted me and said, ‘why don’t you tell our stories?’”
So she began documenting the “warts and all” history of churches, charities and institutions that cared for children, interviewing care leavers.
“In every state there were thousands of them,” she said.
“It’s a huge amount of work that has consumed a lot of my life and the lives of my colleagues.
“You’ve got to learn to be a really good listener, value their experiences and never argue with them.”
She was “immensely grateful” for their stories, which helped her build comprehensive histories of institutions as a scholar at Australian Catholic University.
“They supported me in this research even though they knew the church wasn’t going to come off well,” she said.
Prof Swain wrote books on topics like forced adoption, and three reports in 2014 that were instrumental in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Authorities would answer children’s pleas for help in future thanks to the commission and the research it encouraged, she said.
“Even the police didn’t believe or wouldn’t believe children were being abused by priests or people in charitable organisations,” she said.
“Now that will never happen again because, A, people know it happens and, B, that it shouldn’t happen.”
Telling survivors’ stories was the “greatest privilege” as a historian for Prof Swain.
“Although a lot of them can tell their own stories,” she said.
“They appreciate having me to stand beside them. I’m there if they want me to speak.”
Wallington’s Peter Tanner and Newtown’s David Watters also became members of the order on Monday.
Locals Keith Fagg, John Craven, Arvind Srivasta, Mark Kirkland, Lyn Mulligan, John Spence and Neville Barwick each received a Medal of the Order of Australia.
