Leonie Sheedy is the co-founder and Executive Officer of Care Leavers Australia Network (CLAN). Leonie is a Care Leaver herself and realising the need for ongoing support and advocacy for Care Leavers, Leonie and Dr Joanna Penglase co-founded CLAN 2000. Since this time Leonie has worked tirelessly at CLAN to achieve justice and redress for all Australian Care Leavers.
At the time of establishing CLAN, a network of some 900 members, there had been little public recognition of the abuse and neglect endured by many of the estimated 500,000 children (during the 1900’s up until the late 1980’s) who had spent periods of their childhood in the 800+ orphanages, children’s Homes and other institutions.
Through her advocacy work at CLAN, Leonie was instrumental in galvanizing support for the subsequent Senate Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care, and the Inquiry’s two reports about Care Leavers (sometimes referred to as Forgotten Australians) and former Child Migrants that were released in 2004, and 2009. The Senate Reports laid a strong foundation of evidence of abuse and neglect, and recommended a number of reforms to improve the plight of Care Leavers.
Since this time Leonie has continued to strongly advocate and work towards the implementation of the Senate Inquiry recommendations. Successes have included the 15 November 2009 National Apology to Care Leavers and former Child Migrants (delivered in Parliament House, Canberra by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd), as well as various State apologies, and the establishment of permanent memorials in most State Capital cities in recent years.
More recently, through CLAN Leonie has continued to strongly advocate for the need for a Royal Commission into the abuse and neglect of children in children’s Homes and other care services, and was present when the Prime Minister of Australia announced she was establishing a Royal Commission into the Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2012. Leonie works closely with the Royal Commission to ensure the effective engagement of the Care Leaver cohort of abuse victims, to ensure their needs are understood and they are effectively and sensitively supported to provide evidence.
Leonie also founded the Donor Conception Support Group in 1993 and is the mother of three donor children, and believes in their human right to know their true identities.
Leonie received the Order of Australia medal in 2007 for service to the community through the organisations Care Leavers of Australia Network and the Donor Conception Support Group of Australia.
Leonie continues to promote public awareness and understanding of the abuse and neglect suffered by Care Leavers, and to advocate for the urgent establishment of a national compensation scheme to fairly support all adults who as children suffered all manner of abuse and neglect, and who have suffered the consequences ever since.
