We were delighted to be part of the Doing Schools Differently national conference 2024. Â Thanks to Tom Allsop at Peakcare and Kerri Chard, one of our amazing trainers, for raising awareness of the challenges for children in care and the ways we are working with children though our Little Stars Learners program, to provide individualised learning support.
Lisa Honeychurch is the Founding Director of Change for Youth Foundation and has spent more than two decades working across law, child advocacy, psychology and systems designed to protect and support children and young people.
Lisa is a qualified lawyer who practised as an employment and litigation lawyer for more than 20 years. She was a partner and manager at ClarkeKann Lawyers before establishing and running her own specialist legal practice, Honeychurch Workplace Lawyers, for more than eight years.
Her commitment to child welfare extends well beyond her work with Change for Youth Foundation. Prior to establishing Little Stars Kids, Lisa undertook pro bono legal work for Act for Kids and served on the Research Committee of The Abused Child Trust, contributing to her longstanding interest in research, prevention and better systems for children who have experienced abuse and neglect.
Lisa also holds a double major in psychology and has undertaken significant training in trauma and the impact of trauma on the developing brain. She has also contributed to the development of training in this area.
Lisa has a particular interest in the rights of children within the legal and justice system and has advocated for children’s rights for many years, both through her work in litigation and through non-adversarial advocacy.
Her professional experience has reinforced her belief that protecting children requires more than responding to harm after it occurs. It requires laws, policies, systems and institutions that are deliberately designed around the safety, rights and developmental needs of children and young people.
In 2016, Lisa founded Change for Youth Foundation and developed the Little Stars Kids Camp model for children who had experienced abuse and neglect. She subsequently developed the Empower Youth Program for children living in out-of-home care in Queensland.
Drawing on her legal and systems expertise, Lisa built these programs with a strong focus on child safety, safeguarding, governance, accountability and trauma-informed practice.
Lisa has an avid interest in research relating to child welfare, child protection and the experiences of vulnerable children and young people, and in translating that research into practical legal, policy and systemic change.
She is particularly interested in building laws and systems that better support children and young people, prevent harm and ensure that children’s rights and voices are recognised within the systems that affect their lives.
Lisa’s work supporting children who have experienced abuse and neglect was recognised when she was named a finalist in the Queensland Community Foundation Emerging Philanthropists category in 2019.
Lisa’s focus is on challenging systems that fail children and advocating for evidence-based change that improves their safety, rights, wellbeing and life outcomes with a particular interest in corporal punishment law reform. Lisa is a member of the Ending Physical Punishment against children committee.
Kerri Chard is a leading authority in Child Protection with a background in psychology and over two decades of professional experience in the Non-Government and Government Sectors. She has a wealth of knowledge and experience in working with families impacted by intergenerational trauma, abuse and neglect. Kerri has spent significant time working in the court system with these families and has also run a regional intake service to determine intervention responses to children to meet their safety needs. She has developed award winning interventions within the Education sector, and spent time assisting schools to better understand complex developmental trauma and support children in the education system as well as bringing trauma informed curriculums into the classroom.
Kerri is Queensland’s leading Trust Based Relational Intervention (TBRI®) practitioner, having studied directly with Dr David Cross and the Karen Purvis Institute of Child Development team. Kerri trains residential care workers, foster and kinship support staff and also works directly with foster and kinship carers as well as biological parents using TBRI®. Kerri has spent time working in the USA with leaders and innovators helping children heal from their trauma. She is well known for her passionate yet pragmatic approach to the complex issue of Child Protection.
She is highly regarded as someone who can think differently and translate psychological theory into practical interventions that transform lives. Kerri is also a foster carer who successfully uses TBRI with children in the care system in her own home – and also on her own 3 sons (and husband!)
