About
Rob Turner
Author
At the time of writing, Rob Turner was the Chaplain to two schools in outback Queensland. He has been connected with youth and children’s work for most of his life and has a passion to see children fulfill their potential. He also likes making cool stuff out of recycled junk.
After reading Royal Commission and Australian Institute of Criminology reports, he identified a strategy to break the fortress of secrecy that harbours child abuse. Ali’s Secret (and many books like it) will be key to empowering victims to disclose and take the first steps toward safety and healing.
Brett Cardwell
Illustrator
Brett Cardwell is based in Melbourne as a freelance artist, communicator and animator. He grew up on a farm in Whittlesea, Victoria where artist mum encouraged him to draw cartoons at a very young age. By the end of high school he had illustrated a book called Training and Handling Australian Sheep Dogs. During the 1990s Brett discovered the power of visual story telling while demonstrating to outback communities. This spurred a passion to encourage and inspire kids and adults to use their talents for helping others as well. He has served as a chaplain in two primary schools in Victoria and continues to provide cartooning and animation workshops around Australia.
More of his work can be seen at cardytoons.com.au
WHY THIS BOOK?
The statistics regarding child sexual abuse (CSA) are horrendous but there is HOPE. There is a ground swell of momentum to break the silence and turn the tide.
The average delay to disclosure of CSA is currently 24 years. I want to reduce this to two years so that victims are empowered to start a journey of healing as soon as possible. More than 15% of our school students are victims of CSA. For girls, it is around one in five. How many victims are in your school? Each one of these victims could start on a new path if they are empowered to disclose.
Ali’s Secret is a great resource for parents, carers, chaplains and counsellors; to open discussion, empower resilience and take steps toward safety and healing (while keeping innocent children unscathed by the subject). It is suitable for reading to mixed primary school groups.
HOW IT CAME ABOUT
School Chaplains are ideally situated to hear disclosures, but the topic is so delicate that a tailored program and a discreet book could help a lot.
In searching for appropriate resources, I was encouraged to write them myself.
The story ‘Ali’s Secret’ (originally called ‘Afgan’s Secret) came to me in the middle of the night.
What I lacked in writing skills and professional expertise was soon made up by an amazing collection of authors, police, editor, proof reader, counsellors and psychologist.
A crowd funding campaign on Pozible https://www.pozible.com/project/alis-secret launched the book and raised enough money to print 1,000 copies.
I’m very grateful to all of the contributors and supporters of this project.