Lisa Conway not only survived a “traumatic” childhood and an “unhealthy relationship”, she has since helped hundreds escape similar circumstances.
She speaks to Luke Voogt about being labelled a “tip rat” growing up in country Victoria and living in her car with two daughters before a life-changing job application.
Lisa Conway is no stranger to the fears that Indigenous women face dealing with social workers.
“Mum and dad didn’t like child protection – they moved around a lot,” the Mount Duneed local and Yorta Yorta woman said.
Lisa’s parents were in state care from very young ages, with her dad living on the streets of Melbourne by age 13.
When Lisa, the second-eldest of three children, was born in 1974, they lived in Thornbury and her dad worked labouring jobs.
They moved to the small town of Learmonth, near Ballarat, where the local kids called her family “tip rats”, Lisa said.
“Our mob’s up in Shepparton, so we were the only Aboriginal family around.
“My primary school was very small – most of the children were from the rich local families who owned the surrounding farms.”
Lisa “tried hard” and excelled in school, mostly unfazed by the racism directed at her, her siblings and her cousins.
“I didn’t know any different back then,” she said.
“People introducing me would say, ‘she’s one of [them] but she’s not like the rest of them’.
“I felt proud that they didn’t see me like one of the rest of them but ashamed at the same time.
“You don’t fit in with your own family but you don’t fit in with the general community either.
“People had already decided who you were from the day you were born.”
Home life was “traumatic” and her family moved to Queensland for five years when she was 10, which Lisa believes was to avoid child protection.
They moved back to Ballarat and Lisa became the first member of her family to finish year 12.
She worked in retail and began studying sociology and psychology but had to give that up to care for her mum after she became very ill.
Lisa was 21 when her mum died and she married “quite young” before moving to Shepparton with her then-husband.
“I was working in retail – we spent a lot of time in and out of housing,” she said.
After falling pregnant at age 25 she visited Centrelink for help.
“I was 40 weeks’ pregnant and unable to work anymore – and I was the main breadwinner,” she said.
Lisa refused to see a social worker and, initially, an offer to see a careers counsellor.
“My response was no one was taking my baby,” she said.
“[The Centrelink employee] was trying to do me a favour and I saw it as a threat.
“It’s hard to think long-term because you’re in crisis mode. I was thinking I just needed a roof over our heads and food.”
Lisa’s great-grandmother was part of the Stolen Generations and such events over the past century have led to Indigenous people distrusting government agencies.
“It’s ingrained in us to be fearful of social workers and government,” Lisa said.
“There’s baggage on both sides.”
But after having her first child, Hayley, she returned to see the careers counsellor.
“Having a baby changed my life,” Lisa said.
“All of a sudden it’s just like ‘wow – I’ve got this other person [who] is so much more important than me’.”
The counsellor suggested she was suitable to work at Centrelink.
“Which is so ironic,” she said.
“My idea of social workers is that they break up families.
“But I thought, ‘maybe … experiencing what faces Aboriginal people, I can actually do some good.”
She began studying social work, building on her earlier study, and completed a 14-week placement at Centrelink.
“The degree took me eight years because I had another child in the middle,” she said.
“That was when I realised that I had to make some serious changes in my life – I had two little girls that were going to grow up in an unhealthy relationship.”
She was unable to secure housing after leaving her then-husband, instead living in her car with her daughters in a Broadmeadows car park for six weeks.
But the placement at Centrelink gave her the confidence to apply for a job.
“I would never have applied for a job there, but the people there were like, ‘no, go for it’,” she said.
“They said I had all the skills for it.”
She was elated when she got the job but “too ashamed” to tell her workmates she was homeless.
“I’d drop off the girls at childcare and pretend I had gone to the gym – I would have a shower and get ready at work,” she said.
But her first two pay cheques and having a stable government job “made a huge difference” in applying for housing.
“It was mind-blowing money to me,” she said.
“It seems like nothing now – my starting wage was $40,000 – but the most I had earned in a year before then was $15,000.”
Lisa, 46, has now worked for Services Australia for 15 years.
“I’ve done a lot of work with members of the Stolen Generations and care-leavers,” she said.
“I’ve helped a lot of people find what their strengths are and find work.”
She moved to Grovedale about a decade ago and “saved truckloads of money” to build a home in Mount Duneed.
She is now one year into a PhD titled, ‘Is the Australian Public Service culturally responsive?’ through the Sir Ronald Wilson Scholarship.
“I’m bloody lucky, people keep giving me opportunities and I keep grabbing them,” she said.
“I can’t wait until I can put ‘Dr’ on my flight profile so they welcome me to the plane with ‘Dr Conway’ – it’ll be the first thing I change.”
She channelled her own experience into writing a training course for working with Indigenous clients that Centrelink now teaches to all employees.
Recently she won the Pat Turner Prize – a joint public service and university award – for her research so far.
“My friends are astounded at where I’m at,” she said.
“The research I’m doing will hopefully guide initiatives and employment strategies aimed to get more Indigenous people into leadership roles in the public service.”
Her eldest daughter Hayley Boehm has overcome her own obstacles of short-term memory loss and dyslexia.
Hayley combines “high emotional intelligence” and problem solving in her job at Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-Operative, according to her proud mum, and has played for the Geelong Falcons.
“If you were to judge her by a white person’s academic standards you’d consider her stupid,” Lisa said.
“If she grew up in Learmonth she would have been considered a tip rat and put to the side. But she’s actually got a lot of strengths and she’s flourishing.
“We’ve broken that cycle – my kids are the first in five generations that haven’t had any interaction with social services.
“They’ve grown up really proud being Aboriginal and knowing the strengths that it brings. For my kids ‘it’s like wow you can do anything’.”
