Fiona Herbert is a child protecting consultant and is a qualified psychotherapist with a background in social service. She did a philosophy course and worked in a mental/ psychiatric ward. She was living in Dubai and wasn’t particularly loving the work that she was doing. Her husband then got a job in Kenya which led them to move there. She worked in child protection and helped with policies and procedures in regards to abuse (sexual, neglect etc).

She explained how much she enjoyed her job and loves working with people. She talked about how working with people has always been interesting and unexpected. “Every child’s life you that you can impact positively, then it’s worth it.” That has always been the main driving force for her to get into child protection.

UNICEF teamed up with a NGO in order to reach the locals. Fiona was able to train them to see signs and symptoms of neglect and at what point does it turn into abuse. One of her goals was to strengthen the relationships between the agencies that were working with children this is because of one of the cases that she was faced with where a 12 year old girl was sexually abused by a man and his friends. She was traumatised and would have to constantly retell and go through the very same trauma every time she would have to talk about it to each agency.

She believes that she is an advocate for that child- that is the mindset with which see proceeds onto each case, with an end goal of protecting the child. She also acknowledges the fact that child abuse isn’t always intentional, some people just have horrible life situations.

It was a very different perspective for me when she sympathised and looked at the situations of underprivileged families. It is extremely inspiring to me how she is someone who cares so deeply for the safety of a child and is someone who handles sensitive cases with great care.

She explained that local NGO’s don’t have enough money or resources and this is a constant battle that they are facing. They don’t have enough money to go and check up on the children.

The terrorist issues pushed her out of Kenya and she came to Singapore along with her family. She chose to work at a school as she missed doing some direct work and missed working one on one. Another factor that was quite appealing that there would be enough resources that were being provided. She enjoys the school environment as everyone works as a team and she doesn’t feel as though she is the only one helping a child. Working as a team provides the support and strength that would be lacking if she was working alone where she wouldn’t really be sure as to whether the child is completely safe or not. She hopes to form a transparent and strong relationship with the kids she is working with and hopes to protect and provide them with a safe a stable environment.