Home and Hope

For 20 years, Karinya House has been taking young and vulnerable mothers and babies under its roof and teaching them skills for life.

When Jazz first met Catherine Cooney, client services manager with Canberra’s Karinya House, she was so deeply distraught she was almost catatonic.

The trauma Jazz had experienced was every mother’s worst nightmare. Family breakdown and poverty meant she and her partner were homeless and her four-month-old-son had been removed from her arms by authorities.

At just 23 years old, she fell pregnant again, and as the birth of her second son approached, Jazz realised she was at almost certain risk of losing custody of him, too. Family and Community Services told her the only way she could keep her baby with her was to move into supported accommodation—enter the 21 dedicated maternal health, caseworkers and support staff of Karinya House.

For 20 years, the service has provided a home, and 24-hour assistance, for mothers and babies in crisis, as well as outreach programs to support these vulnerable women as they move towards independent living.

When Jazz arrived she was at rock bottom. She felt utterly hopeless and was fast disconnecting from those around her as a coping mechanism.

“I couldn’t stop crying. I didn’t have my partner with me. I’d just had a baby. I was really emotional and felt really alone even though there were a lot of people around me.”

Catherine spoke to Jazz several times on the phone while her pregnancy progressed and her placement at Karinya was organised. The pair met face-to-face at Calvary Hospital shortly after baby Justice was born. Catherine remembers just how vulnerable Jazz was.

“She could barely communicate or make eye contact. My heart really went out to her.”

“She was so traumatised she had almost shut down emotionally”.

But Catherine could see something in Jazz, despite her detachment from the world. As with all the new mothers she supports, Catherine set about bringing Jazz back— helping her to care for her newborn son and piecing her life and family together.

Jazz agreed to move into the Melba facility with Justice, but it was not simple, nor easy.

After years of instability, periods of homelessness and the loss of her first son, Jazz initially found it hard to engage.

As she underwent intensive support and met with her caseworkers each day, the adjustment became a little easier. She loved her little boy and cared for him with dedication. She started to learn how to cook some basic meals, and was supported to breastfeed her baby. As Justice thrived, Jazz became a more competent and confident mother.

More than a year on, Jazz’s life is almost unrecognisable. She has a lease on a modern townhouse, and is a doting and dependable parent. With Karinya’s support, she successfully contested a court order to remove Justice from her, and has regular contact with her first son—and hopes to regain custody.

Jazz passed a clinical parenting capacity assessment and she and Justice’s father are both engaged with support services and have worked to stay together despite their traumatic past, forging a loving and healthy relationship.

As she returns to Karinya for the HerCanberra interview, Jazz is embraced by staff members as they pass her in the corridor. Her eyes are bright and her smile is wide. Catherine, in particular, is almost overwhelmed with pride.

“Jazz is really a perfect example of why I do this job,” says the former school psychology and counselling support worker.

For Catherine, the job she has dedicated herself to at Karinya House has deeply personal resonance. She knows from experience the myriad pressures that pregnancy can bring—particularly for those unprepared.

Catherine was herself a young mum after “an early and somewhat disastrous marriage” to her teenaged boyfriend. She had a three-year-old daughter and was putting her life back on track in her early twenties—enrolling at university.

“I had survived my ‘wild years’ and I was settling down, employing my gifts, talents and privileges to focus on building a productive, stable life. Everyone, including me, was supremely confident that despite an impulsive and somewhat rocky start to my adult life, I was going to be fine. And then something unexpected happened. I had an affair with a young man in my Literature class and I became pregnant.”

“Hardship does not even come close to describing the emotional turmoil I plunged into... the shame. I was already technically a single mother—if I had this baby I would not only be a single mother, but my children would have different fathers.”

In the eyes of society, Catherine believed, “that was bad on so many levels.”

Describing herself as a person of faith, Catherine admits that she was forced to explore all her options.

“I am a Catholic and with that comes particular sensibilities regarding unborn children. And yet I did consider termination of the pregnancy. I did not do this not for me, this was so that I did not have to upset the lives of all the people who care about me.

“I have discovered the research since then, that this is indeed the most common reason women seek abortion. To take the pressure off other people. It’s another service women provide, they keep things tidy.”

But a moment of certainty came as unexpectedly as the pregnancy. Catherine was waiting for someone to get off a bus at the Jolimont Centre in Civic when she ran into an old friend.

“I don’t know why but I told her I was pregnant and that I was probably going to terminate. Her response was so important. She simply asked me ‘Is that what you want?’ I said, ‘Of course not, I want the baby, I already love the baby, it’s just so messy.” As I said it, I knew I would have the baby. And I did.”

She would go on to marry Michael, that young man from her Literature class, and give birth to a beautiful daughter, Mary, and another three children. Catherine would also complete her degree, go on to complete postgraduate studies in Psychology and Counselling and is currently completing her Masters.

By anyone’s standards, Catherine has led a productive and successful life, joyously welcoming Mary’s first child—a granddaughter—into the world just after Christmas.

But she remains innately sensitive to the plight of young mothers who move into Karinya. She understands their fears and the sense of isolation that envelops them when their friendship group is moving on, studying, going to parties and doing normal teenage stuff.

The home offered by Karinya is also crucial in allowing vulnerable mothers the space and support to move forward. They bond with the other mothers, they are supported by caring staff, they are given the skills and confidence to raise their babies. The future benefits to mother and child are enormous.

“So much research has been done in this area. Attachment theory and developmental milestones are well known to us and we know that if this is done well in the early parenting period then the benefits are huge and can significantly change life outcomes for individuals which inevitably flow on to broader society,” says Catherine.

This is particularly true for women who have not had a happy and healthy family life and have had limited opportunities to learn this by osmosis.

“Most of the women, most of the time, receive advice and education willingly if they know it will make their relationship with their child better. All the mothers I have ever met have the desire to be good at it.”

Each year, Karinya takes in around 200 mothers and babies as well as offering outreach to around 25 women at any one time. Running a large shared accommodation facility that is staffed day and night does not come cheaply. And as Karinya runs on a 50 per cent Government funding agreement in order to maintain autonomy, it means each year a dedicated committee has to raise $750,000 to ensure the service continues.

For Jazz, however, there is no price to be put on her Karinya experience. It provided so much more than a temporary home. It pulled her back from the brink and allowed her to change the course of spiralling disadvantage and misery.

“I know that if it wasn’t for Catherine and Karinya, I would not have my son. She is my guardian angel, and to be honest, I didn’t want to leave at first because these people had become my family and Karinya was my home.”

But as she considers returning to her bright and clean townhouse to play with her beautiful son, Jazz is filled with a new level of independence and confidence. She now has a home of her own and hope for a bright future.

Donations can be made to support Karinya House at karinyahouse.asn.au/donate-now

Words: Emma Macdonald | Photography: Tim Bean