Voices
Welcome to Voices, Gallipoli Medical Research's new podcast, where we showcase our expertise in veteran mental health, medical research, clinical trials, and our world-leading work with veterans and their families.
From a Victoria Cross Medal recipient and a mother-of-two surviving Stage 4 melanoma, to Australia’s first female 3-star lieutenant general—their voices will transform the way you think about service, leadership, and what it truly means to stand beside one another during life’s hardest moments.
Journey with these stories and find your own inspiration to serve, to heal and to lead.
Discover your own voice through the courageous lived experience of our guests…
Voices
01: From Personal Tragedy To National Reform, Gwen Cherne AM Explains Why Families Must Be In The Room
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Note: Since the time of recording the conversation with this week’s guest Gwen Cherne, she has been awarded a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) on Australia Day 2026 and Annabelle Wilson has succeeded Gwen as the Veteran Family Advocate Commissioner.
Trigger Warning: This episode discusses suicide and may not be suitable for all listeners at this time. Please circle back for the next conversation of Voices.
What was discussed in this episode:
Grief can break a family—or teach it how to bend without snapping. We sit down with Gwen Cherne, AM; Australia’s inaugural Veteran Family Advocate Commissioner, to trace a story that spans war zones, romance in Afghanistan, the demands of elite service, and the aftershocks of suicide. Gwen’s candor is disarming: she talks openly about PTSD, moral injury, probable blast-related brain injury, and the way operational tempo strains love, parenting, and community ties. Then she shows how those same pressures shaped her life’s work—turning sorrow into system change.
In this episode we cover:
• why families must be embedded in veteran care
• how PTSD, TBI, and moral injury ripple through a household
• talking to children about suicide with age-appropriate truth
• postvention and training grief peers to prevent further loss
• living with suicidal “wobbles” while modeling self-care
• the case for evidence, data, and applied research
• school indicators and supports for children of veterans
• addressing family and domestic violence with accountability
• renewal in leadership and making space for new voices
Together we unpack why treating veterans as islands fails. Pulling someone into a clinic for six weeks and sending them back to an unchanged home is not recovery; it is a pause. Gwen argues for a family-first approach: educate spouses and kids, gain consent to include them in care, and build postvention supports that catch households before the next fall. She’s launching a grief workshop that trains bereaved veterans and families as grief peers, multiplying impact through lived experience. Along the way, she normalises the hard stuff—her own “wobbles,” the language she uses with her children, and the small rituals that keep a home steady when waves hit.
We also get practical. Gwen outlines what evidence-based policymaking looks like with Gallipoli Medical Research: turn studies into tools, close data gaps, and fund what works. That includes a simple but powerful school indicator for children of veterans to flag frequent moves, curriculum shifts, and the need for tailored support. On domestic violence, she points to a distinct lever inside the military—members motivated to change to remain in service—and calls for programs that convert that pressure into accountability and safety.
If you care about veteran mental health, suicide prevention, and family wellbeing, this conversation offers a blueprint: include families by design, not as an afterthought. Use data to guide investment. Train peers to stand beside the bereaved. And make space for renewal, so more voices can carry the work forward.
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Welcome To Voices And Mission
Host Miriam KentHi everyone, I'm Miriam Kent, CEO of Gallipoli Medical Research, and I'm delighted to welcome you to our new podcast, Voices. Tune in as we bring you raw conversations with leaders, survivors, researchers, and advocates across veteran health, medical research, clinical trials, and the broader community. From a Victoria Cross Medal recipient and a mother of two surviving stage 4 melanoma to Australia's first female three-star Lieutenant General, their voices will transform the way you think about service, leadership, and what it truly means to stand beside one another during life's hardest moments. We have entrusted the master conversationalist Sarah Maxwell to sit down and facilitate these important conversations. Sarah, over to you.
Introducing Gwen Cherne’s Story
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellToday we sit down with a woman who embodies resilience. Resilience being defined as able to endure strain without being permanently injured. And tell me this isn't today's guest, Gwen Cherney, after you hear her remarkable ability to go through such hardship and still be able to laugh with utter abandon and have an appreciation for life that hasn't always appreciated her. Born in the United States, her career took her to Afghanistan, Africa, Central and South America, and the Caribbean, where she focused on stability, relief, and development for youth, women, and families living in crisis and extreme poverty. She currently serves as the first ever veteran family advocate commissioner for Australia, as well as appointed in 2021 as member of the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission. Gwen is perfectly placed to advocate for veteran families, having survived the death by suicide in 2017 of her late husband, Sergeant Peter John Cafe, who was a decorated member of the 2nd Commando Regiment, who served in East Timor, Cambodia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He left behind their three children. Between 2001 and 2016, there were 373 deaths by suicide for those serving in the Australian Defence Forces. Gwen's advocacy for mental health within families is critical in this country and beyond. Did you know that a child whose parent dies by suicide is three times more likely to commit that same act? Gwen knows this as a mother of her three children, left to process their father's death. You begin to get a sense of the inner fortitude required by her to voice the challenges that families in defense come up against. She really can do hard things. Gwen also has a bachelor's degree in psychology with a minor in women's studies and a master's degree in public administration with a concentration in international policy. Welcome Gwen to Voices, GMR's new podcast designed to capture the sentiment of incredible men and women like yourself who work tirelessly to improve the health and well-being of veterans, their families, and the broader Australian community. Hi, Sarah. Thanks so much for having me. That was quite a humbling uh intro. So thank you for that. Yeah, and and truly, that was my impression of you is your resilience is staggering. And so I want to start off with Gwen today. She did tell me that she's very overwhelmed. There is so much going on
Passing The Torch And Renewal
Conversationalist Sarah Maxwellin her life. And so maybe she won't like starting with the right now, but I do think it is a timely moment in your career. Um, you know, your post as the inaugural veteran family advocate commissioner for the past five years is about to end. And yet you're feeling really good about it. So can you share why you feel this is a positive step forward?
Guest Gwen Cherne AMLook, I um I've been doing this work for the last eight and a half years. And I was posted, was appointed into this position five years ago. And I all throughout my career, I have believed change and renewal is important. I came into this with enormous fire in my belly, you know, a thirst for change, lots and lots of energy. And the job itself, because of the lived experience I bring with it, um, has taken a toll. And I'm a bit tired. And I, you know, have found it slightly more challenging than I did at the beginning to consistently fight against that, you know, that pushing that boulder up the hill. Um, and I think it's time for renewal, change, someone with new ideas, new fire in their belly, new perspective on how to take what I have built and really grow it. And so I'm really wanting the next person to just bring all of their life, their energy, their ideas, their own lived experience to this. And like I said, build something on the foundation that I'm leaving them.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellYeah, well said. I love that how recognition of your own fire and that, yes, it does dissipate and you do move and start to think of other things that you're you might be more um suited to. So it's lovely to give that space to someone else who's gonna bring the fire.
From U.S. Roots To Australia
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellAnd and so, with that, knowing where you sit today, I want you to take us back a little bit, take us on the journey that led you to live in Australia. So we still hear a little accent there. So we know that you're born into a military family. Um, you traveled a lot growing up, you have had many roles in the service of others, including Afghanistan for three years. So, what actually led you to not only becoming an Australian citizen, but the brave act of renouncing your US citizenship?
Guest Gwen Cherne AMOh, which was challenging. Don't think that was an easy task. Um, so my like when I say uh when you say I'm a mil from a military family, great-grandfather, grandfather, uncle, father, um, so World War I, World War II, um, Vietnam, my uncle was in Korea, my other uncle was in the army, my dad was in the Air Force, my cousins were in the army and the navy, my other uncle was in the navy, like just when I look back at it, like massive military family. I don't know how my brothers and I got out of serving. Um, I know we were all told we were going to uni, but there was, and there was never an expectation. It was a bit of a peacetime, at least that was what they were selling in the States at the time, if you will, to students going to university, that we were in more a lower tempo period of time, and there were other opportunities than the need for consistent commitment from all of the population to lean in there. Um, but I um I my I didn't travel around the US because of my dad. He was actually out of the military, but we lived with him having PTSD and moral injury. So the impacts of his service were massive. Um, and we felt that with family domestic violence and his drinking and treatment mostly of my brother, um brothers. And I um, you know, so we saw that consistent um trauma reliving in us um and the aftermath of that, but we didn't realize what it was until after my husband had died. We just thought he was kind of mean um and really unhealthy. But we didn't, you know, we hadn't all of those pieces had of the Tetris hadn't sort of fallen in place for us until I started doing more work in the space, even though I had gone to Afghanistan and I was working with women and youth and engineering projects and doing all this amazing stuff and working with the military. Um, and what brought me here was meeting, and yeah, he was a security contractor on a development project I was working on. So, yes, a little bit of the um, you know, bodyguard. Um I got okay, got it. You're getting that visual, yes. Um, very compelling, very um yeah, beautiful human in terms of his personality. And um, yeah, I just absolutely fell in love with Pete.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellAnd we this is an Afghanistan uh version of the bodyguard?
Guest Gwen Cherne AMYes, that was telling me that's what I'm telling you. Yes.
unknownThank God.
Guest Gwen Cherne AMSo in Afghanistan, he's looking after the contract and all the people that I'm working with, and um had a friend basically look at me and say, Um, I think you two might be in love and might need to work this out and recognize it. And we were like, Oh, oh, everyone else around us has seen this, but we've, you know, we're still in the friend zone.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellUm so at this time, in in theory, you live in the US and he's Australian. Yep. And so how does one just work it
Meeting Pete In Afghanistan
Conversationalist Sarah Maxwellout when you live, you come from different countries? How does that work, Gwen?
Guest Gwen Cherne AMHow does that work? Um, one of you compromises. So we put our we had been traveling in and out of uh Australia for his son, Tom, my stepson, who was 10 at the time, and then decided we'd move to the States, and then very, very quickly decided he wanted to re-enlist in the Australian Army, and that he was um at his happiest when he was serving in two commander regiments. So we quickly within, so he moved back within three months, we got married, he moved back to Australia within three months, and then I came over a couple months later and found a job here in the Australian Civil Military Center and moved to Sydney.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellAnd how many years before you came up against this idea of, like you said, I said bravely renouncing your US citizenship? Because I could see and I'm understanding more and more how hard that really is. So, what was the reason behind that?
Guest Gwen Cherne AMLook, I I mean, I've always had political aspirations, um, but didn't it's not really possible wide scale in the US for someone who isn't a multimillionaire to apply for or um run for politics. And I became aware of um Brendan Nelson, he was my mentor for a long time, and some other members of the Liberal Party, and they just opened my eyes to the fact that this is something that's not out of reach for everyday citizens in Australia. Um, and so I thought I'd have a go. And really, uh what I also realized was, you know, as an advocate, I really love advocating on behalf of veteran families, but I wanted to widen that scope a bit. I have international experience, I have perspective working with defense, working, working in healthcare, working in education. Um, and I had an enormous amount of skills that I could bring to bear in our federal parliament. And a seat in my local area came up. I put my hand up. And in order to do that, um, I had to renounce my US citizenship. Very, very hard decision to make, much to my family's dismay. Um, but I also, you know, am tied to Australia. Like I moved here 14 years ago. I fell in love with the little nook of the world that I moved into. I feel more at home and have lived here longer than anywhere else in my life. Um I have this beautiful network who's gotten me through the worst trauma I've ever experienced. And um, and also, you know, three children who, unless they go and spread their wings and go somewhere else in the world, um, will keep me here. And so here I am. Wow.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellThat's really interesting, the the political aspect of it and and just those um, that spirit within you that's always wanted that. And here you are in Australia doing it. So your relationship with your late husband became an intro, integral part of the service you've committed to these past five years in that your lived experience. So, can you describe the the depth of what you've learned from being married to a decorated soldier who ended up taking his life and the three kids that you raised together? And now here you are on your own with that. So,
Citizenship Choice And Public Service
Conversationalist Sarah Maxwellcan you just take us through that, however, you feel comfortable doing?
Guest Gwen Cherne AMSo help help guide me if you if I'm not hitting the mark here. Yeah, yeah. Um and really, so um, I was very involved in our not very, I was involved. I had a great little network of military families that I was engaged with and um when Pete was serving to survive military service. He was away all the time. There was one year that he wasn't deployed overseas and he was gone more than six months. Um, so his son, who you know was two when he died, spent a whole, I think we added up to like nine months with his father in the same house of his whole you know life. So the fact that like he did doesn't remember him also makes sense. Um, because he was just always away, busy working, um, training and and um uh across the country and and overseas.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellUm so did his son Tom that you spoke about, did he live with you guys?
Guest Gwen Cherne AMSo deployed. Yeah, so Tom uh moved in with us. Um so Emily was born in 2012, and Tom moved in with us nine months later and lived with us until he left home and joined the army, same unit as his father. Um, so yes. Um, and then Lachlan was born in 2014, at the end of 2014, and um Pete deployed in 2016, had a stroke when he was in Iraq, um, and then came home and um less than nine months later suicided. My gosh.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellSo that's a good thank you for sharing all of that because sometimes we get so focused on his death, but before it was hard already.
Guest Gwen Cherne AMOh, it was sorry. Like it was almost like you know, he had PTSD, he had moral injury. I actually think he had a brain injury um because of he was an explosives expert. So he was training all of these other people in his unit when they stood up the um counterterrorism task force in Sydney on the East Coast, he was doing all the training. So if you know, someone who was day-to-day experiencing those blasts, and I actually think it, you know, deteriorated um the functionality and the cognitive function of his brain, um, to the point where he was really struggling. And then the stroke made it worse. Um, so there were all these, like, it's never just one thing, right? It's all so many layers and so many um things that contribute to a death like that.
Marriage, Deployments, And Family Strain
Guest Gwen Cherne AMBut it was challenging and it was ups and downs. It was, you know, are you you're here, but you're not here. So even when he was present, there was all this managing of kids and quiet house and um schedules and things like that, on top of working a full-time job, being totally on my own without anyone, and none of my family was here because they're all over in the States. Um, he wasn't close to his family, so it wasn't like I had his family for support. So very isolated, unless I was making those networks and connections.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellAnd would you, I don't know if you can even step outside for this question, but what do you think, having gone through it personally, you did differently when you advocate for others than you might have if you had not gone through that? Because I know for your whole life you've been basically advocating for people struggling, but this time you're at the front line of it yourself. So, how do you think you advocate differently because of that?
Guest Gwen Cherne AMI think the tolerance uh for immobility and the lack of action isn't there anymore. So, you know, when my husband went through his suicidality, when my son did, I didn't have any patience. I was absolutely not, we're not playing with this. Like, we will call the police, we will do whatever, you will go. Like, all of these things were very black and white to me, versus before where it was really uh fear-based of what if you don't talk to me again? What if he's mad at me? What if he, you know, is so angry that he doesn't talk to me for six months? With, you know, um, once you've gone through that, you you don't care. You're like, you're you being mad at me, but you being here is actually more important to me. The pain of losing you physically on this earth versus the pain of you being mad at me do not even come close to equating. So you're just so much more willing to talk about it, to reach in, to um really make sure that you're doing as much as you can. And the excuses just they don't exist for you anymore. They're still hard, still hard, you know. Like, okay, how do we do this for you in a way that doesn't take away your self-agency, all of those things. But as a family member or as someone advocating for them, it's like you don't understand this is life and death.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellGod clear to you because you have lived the the other side of that. Like, yeah. Okay, so okay, so just back up for a sec for me. And sh if you don't mind, I'd love to hear what you even tell your children when your husband dies. Because, like you said, you have like a two-year-old, you have these different ages. Can you do you want to go back there first of all? And thank you for that.
Guest Gwen Cherne AMLook, I know that when I talk about things, it helps other people. Yeah, so I'm happy to share. I'm pretty much an open book, probably should work on some privacy.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellUm, Gwen, sometimes you think to yourself, am I put on the earth for this? Yes. You know, it's like you were put on the earth to be this open about hard things.
Guest Gwen Cherne AMWell, and and I see the good it does. So um, you know, I have had people write
Stroke, PTSD, TBI, And Suicide
Guest Gwen Cherne AMto me and say, you telling your story made me feel like I could open the door to the cage I was living in and felt so you know. So when when you read things like that and you know that telling your story helps other people, what what's no it literally is um if I can connect and ease pain and trauma and a burden for someone else, I'm in.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellSo and I think you're what you're describing around your fearlessness, like how fear left the building once you went through what you did. I'm curious if that's gonna come through and how you've you speak to your children.
Guest Gwen Cherne AMWell, so fear left, and fear was also crippling, right? So, like the idea that I could lose them became quite literally crippling. So the idea of me moving around like I did when I was a kid every two or three years, um, because I was ice skating or I was at uni or I wanted to go and have a job in LA for a little while or fly to Afghanistan. If I hated it, it didn't matter. Now, like to move is the most terrifying thing in the world because I'm creating instability and I need to create stability for my children. I need to be there, I need to be alive, I need to protect myself and them. Um, so it's a real it is work to not live from a fear based when it comes to risk. So risk decreases, but advocacy and tolerance for um not having conversations has decreased. So it's a funny No, I get that. That was well said. So how do I talk to them? Well, um, Tom was 17, or yeah, no, Tom was 18 just. Loughlin was two, and Emily was four. I think Lachlan um went and played with his trains. Emily um had a little cry and then said, Mommy, can I go swim? And Tom was much more complicated, obviously. Um, what do I say to them? It's a really complicated journey because it's not one thing. So you we started with um dad was sick in his heart and his head. And then as they grow, they have said things to me like, you've lied to me. No, I've told you I will share more with you when your brain is ready. Now, if your brain, as you said so eloquently, is your brain ever ready and able to process something like this? No. Um, but as you grow, every time their brain develops, there's a new conversation, a new understanding, a new layer or level of wanting to know, um, wanting to understand, wanting more information. So we revisit. And it's like, you know, you can't go to school till you're five, you can't, um, or at least late fours. Um, um, you can't drive till you're, you know, get your L's at 16 and this at 17, all of that stuff. There, and so it makes it really easy to go. There's times when I can share this with you. Now, for my kids, they can look me up online. So I have to be very open about
How Lived Experience Changes Advocacy
Guest Gwen Cherne AMthis. Um, methods, things like that, details we don't share, but we do have conversations and they lead it. When they're ready, um, you know, we share when they're when they're like, I'm not really missing dad and I don't want to talk about it. It can go for like six to nine months and they're, you know, totally disinterested. And then all of a sudden it's you don't talk about dad anymore. I'm like, all right, we're back here. Um, so it's just riding in the passenger seat with them and being ready whenever they need you to be available and have those conversations.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellYou said something to me when we first chatted uh about it, was this. idea that after something like this happens you're never the same. Do you remember that? And you were talking about how I think it was joy. You were saying like that was that was really well I was trying to remember this.
Guest Gwen Cherne AMSo I spoke of the weekend and and was brought this up. So if you remember the inside out cartoon. That's right. And we talk about when we're little we have pure joy, we have pure happy, we have pure envy, we have pure anger and there you think of them as little emotive balls, right? That just go into your memory storage. Well once you have this little crack of your soul because someone has left you this way, which is what I believe happens um your every single experience is an um is tainted in and I don't mean tainted in a bad way I mean tainted with sorrow, with emptiness, tainted with this experience of you know there's never anything pure and and so you just see the world and understand the world differently. Do you wish you could go back to purity? Yes. Do you wish you could go back and be naive and not be on this side of the curtain? Yes. But you also have a deeper understanding of human suffering and loss and connection and deep sorrow and connects you in the world in ways that previously you had no idea. I remember sitting next to a widow having no idea what to say now I sit down next to a widow and I know I don't I don't have to say anything I just hold her hand or or there's a knowing that connects us.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellBut or I'm with that with that knowing with with the the kids so my mind did a couple things there. It's asking does the youngest one have a different like you said the memory was not her memory of it. No the who was the youngest your boy little one. Yeah the little one was a boy sorry your son's memory of it was only being recounted to him right is that right he doesn't remember it.
Guest Gwen Cherne AMYeah so the only he's he believes his only memories of his dad are what he sees on videos and his dad because of his protected identity because of who he was didn't like to be um photographed didn't like to be on videos so there are very very
Talking To Children About Suicide
Guest Gwen Cherne AMfew of those that actually exist. So you know like today we would have heaps to share and you know but that was his life it was protection it was protection of his family to not be in these and what if someone hacks your phone and then we've got all of this information about you and I put you at risk because my face was on a video and I shared something. And then they you know um targeted us. So and it's real it's not made up it's like it's real and and families live like that today now, which also disconnects them from their community.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellYes I see that other layer and yet when we're talking about the children like with your kids and then you know you you were the one who told me that statistic about children are three times more likely is that what did I say that correctly to um to ideate an attempt thank you ideate that's okay knowing that are you petrified all the time yeah but also like so here's the thing I have my own suicidal ideation journey.
Guest Gwen Cherne AMLike I go I I call them wobbles um but like they still happen and they happen very quickly and they're not as big and they're not as long and they're not as deep but I still have them. And I had them an enormous amount after Pete died. Doesn't mean that I can't be successful and in the world and great mom and happy and joyful and go dancing with my friends and all of these things. But there are moments in time when it can go very dark for me. And so for me to understand that it just means I have conversations with my kids about you know self-harm I talk to my kids about their mental health we do meditations together we talk about self-regulation my son um you know he the little one has attachment disorder we thought it was ADHD so how do we help him with that because dad wasn't around um is that freeing is that limiting what does that mean for him he really struggles to connect and then rejects people when they do connect so helping him manage that and then you know if he's not connecting in the world he is more at risk. So we actually have to talk to him about this stuff all the time not like it's an occasional thing. So that in our family these conversations are regular and just constant um and and not always like super sad and dark. It's like how are we managing mommy's having a bad day you know and so they but we all take care of each other too like they I came home the other day and was really really struggling after an event and they'd run a bath Loughlin had lit some candles Emily had found some salts and put it in the bath they trick Lockie was very upset that he couldn't put a shade on the the bathroom window because it was too bright and I was like oh my God my family's like gets that their self-care and quiet is important and they want to be there for me but they don't feel like they're parenting they just feel like they're caring for someone they love.
Speaker 1The way that you do it for them.
Guest Gwen Cherne AMYeah and beautiful but like not in a and then mom comes out and she's mom and like and it wasn't a very long time and it was like I was still mom no I'm good don't worry this is really sweet of you guys um you know so still in parent role where they feel safe and but they also feel like they they are learning what it means to do self-care and learning what it means to share when they're not okay.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellAnd hearing about how you live that like how your fam like you live that all the time and yet your
Fear, Stability, And Everyday Care
Conversationalist Sarah Maxwellwork was also talking about that all the time.
Guest Gwen Cherne AMIs that some of the relief that you have um with your posts going to be filled by someone else look I you know I've been thinking about this a lot because I'm like I I don't think I'll step away from the space entirely. I won't um talk about where I'm going or what I'm doing so I'm actually not that sure yet but I have some options but if I were again I think it's about widening that scope a bit um leaving space for others who I've mentored and worked with and to start to be seen more to not be um to be heard more to find their own space in this community and knowing um I I think for me I someone said it so well today when you get told no and you bring lived experience to the table um and you find a barrier it is personal so every time I hit a barrier for families buried by suicide or kids who are grieving or veterans who are struggling to stay alive it is personal to me. So it takes a pound of flesh I see versus being in something that isn't quite so like and people's lives depend on my advocacy yeah like legitimately if we don't get the system right people you know are at risk so I take that very personally and work very hard every day to do that. I do think that particular onus of feeling that responsibility and that personal affront that personal failure um I do need to take a break and then maybe come back into it and give myself I haven't paused I haven't stopped since one week after my husband died.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellYeah that's that's incredible I think you were saying um that you were telling Prince Harry about what you've been through was it a week after your husband died?
Guest Gwen Cherne AMYes so a week after my husband died oh no not Prince Harry I was telling the commanding officer of Special Operations Command Australia got it about um I will be helping you I will be back I will be doing this work and he's looking at me at the funeral like could you just go home and grieve? Like you put like legitimately Gwen you like let people wrap some love and support around and I was like I don't have time for that I have a son to keep alive I have a defense force to make better for him and if my like and there are other families I care about that I am not losing.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellAnd what is the message ultimately like that what you're just describing right there that said no I've got to be out there and I've got to be saying this I've got to be the voice what is that voice saying what is the message that you didn't have time to grieve for because you needed to say it so what are you what are you actually saying?
Guest Gwen Cherne AMFamilies matter families
Stepping Back Without Stepping Away
Guest Gwen Cherne AMare the solution like we had for a long time looked at veterans as islands they and we support them as islands. They go into a mental health facility they get treatment they come out they go back into the same family who has not changed who has no new information like how in any way does that set up a veteran or a family who's been impacted by that negative mental health like you are the nervous system of your family. If you are not well you are impacting everyone around you to put take you out put you into a mental health facility for three or eight six eight weeks and bring you home changes nothing about the environment you've just been in. They might have gotten a respite and a breath they might have gone and gotten their own work but you as a collective system have not changed. So where are like and recogn and that doesn't recognize the impact or the negative impact I should say on their family members. So how do you fix that? How do you repair that?
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellYou know what that makes me think about Gwen remember when you said at the beginning that with your dad you didn't even have the words like you didn't have the word PTSD you in a way you are going back in time and saying hey our family with all this military background we didn't even understand what's going on with dad you know and how here we are like you want to say ripple effect but you don't use the word ripple effect when it comes to this what do we call it so it's the it has broken the foundation of the levee.
Guest Gwen Cherne AMLike it is the foundation of the lighthouse that is on the rocks being crashed up you know the waves are crashing up against it has in the foundation broken. And it will you have to go and fix it. It will never be the same and as you're healing you will still have those waves crashing up against you relentlessly new storms will come they will subside there will be calm but there will be relentless new weather you know um storms that you have to fare and that
Families As Part Of Treatment
Guest Gwen Cherne AMfoundation is what the work that I'm going to do before I leave, which is a postvention grief workshop with 50 families and veterans who are bereaved by suicide to actually help our military and veteran community deeply heal in their grief and then go and be grief peers to others.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellBrilliant what a beautiful way to extend the work to not just do it once but empower them you know to be able to do it as well. Oh I love it.
Guest Gwen Cherne AMThat's so you Gwen to not just um leave on a nap we're gonna leave on a grief a grieve workshop overwhelmed with program delivery which is something I actually haven't done for five years because that isn't been my role and so this to bring this here I've I'm doing a lot of the program delivery which is new and interesting and amazing and um but yeah I just felt like it's really important it is in um response to recommendation 76 and 77 from the Royal Commission in how do we create that response? Well what other knowledge what's going to be useful here what is needed in the Australian context and figuring that out so government can put together a really useful thoughtful response beautiful designed with the community which is what when you say what was that what is the point what was that sentence it is families matter and include them you know do nothing for me without me is something we we've all heard but really in that family context is do not you know anything you do for a veteran impacts me whether I'm a wife a mother a sister an ex-partner a child an adult child whatever you're doing for veterans impacts families let's not do it without them beautiful oh you should be I hope you're proud of of what you've done you know and and taken all of your not not only your lived experience and trauma but like just really pulled it all together all your skill sets and it does have me wonder like what how did you connect with Gallipoli medical research in the first place?
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellHow did that even how did that connection come about?
Guest Gwen Cherne AMUm how did I um how did I come about to work with them? Look oh goodness so I've been working with them because of their fantastic research for years and they do heaps with veterans and families and and healthcare um I in uni I was a um I was pre-medicine before I went into psychology. So I've always had this really deep interest in that um in the medical field. I've always had this really deep interest in research because of all the research that I was involved in in graduate school and had to do regression and um evaluation and monitoring and evaluation to see what is useful, what's actually working and part of what I really like about Gallipoli is they take what they're learning and they make it really practical. They make it applicable it's applied research in many um you know it's not just theoretical let's put this on a shelf how do we actually change and improve people's lives based on what this research is showing us and to get governments um to get behind things and fund things you have to have evidence now. Without
Postvention And Grief Peers
Guest Gwen Cherne AMevidence they don't support it because there are too many things that have the evidence you're not going to shoot in the dark with millions and millions of dollars um to actually you know keep funding things that you don't know if they work when you can actually see evidence that shows this does work. So I have been working with them to say what do we need to know what don't we have about military families that we need what would actually help our community and that's the journey I've been on with GMR for the last five years.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellYeah great it makes total sense actually now that I see your values like the alignment between you and them. And so lastly I I guess what would be your recommendation or even your vision um for veteran families that GMR could be helping bring about over the next five years?
Guest Gwen Cherne AMNot that it's your job anymore to make okay so work in the family and domestic violence space super important and really really um hard so like roll up their sleeves and really lean in there and data we actually need to know what is working for families what isn't working so when we say oh military families are really resilient like what does that mean you know military families are negatively impacted what are they impacted like I know what that means we have heaps of research so when what is working for them where are we seeing progress growth and um why is it that so many families have one kid who really um one child who takes to military life and really succeeds in all of these different places and has another who totally detaches and hates all of the moves and never moves around or one that really succeeds and one that really struggles. Like why is that the case? And are they better off or worse off than the rest of the population? And you know what does that mean? So how do we get support around them that works and what does that support look like so that is what we need more data. We need more understanding of who they are where they are what they need because they aren't just um the partner of a current veteran they are sometimes two and three partners beforehand who have children from them who live in Tasmania but the veteran now lives in Southeast Queensland. So you know and what are their needs and how has military service affected them and you know are there things
Why Evidence And Applied Research Matter
Guest Gwen Cherne AMthat we could do in their schools that would help those kids do better because of all the moving around that they did we know there is so what is it? But it is the data and until we have more data um and then more evidence around how they're going.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellAnd wouldn't it be good uh even what you said just before that about domestic violence wouldn't it be good to have more data and understanding around the occurrences and yeah I think that could be really powerful for the population at large but even just like if you can understand the veteran relationship to like the the military relationship to domestic violence I think you can make a lot of good um understandings for what's going on in other domestic violence situations.
Guest Gwen Cherne AMOh look and and use I actually think men and women who are who are using violence in a mil who are current serving are compelled to improve themselves. Why? Because they want to continue serving and in very few other environments is there that compulsion and that motivation to invest in if I want to stay in this I've actually got to go to an anger management course and get this in like get control of this I and instead we're not leaning in quite that far yet we haven't figured out how to do that in a way that is successful yet. But even even if you move aside and you go so much something much simpler veteran children in schools we still don't have an indicator we have defense kid indicator but veteran in like are you the child of or you know are you a family of a veteran tick on that school well what does that mean it means that you probably changed schools and states which means your curriculum has changed it means you know your friendship groups haven't been like all of these needs of a high need you know higher needs come up and they're clearer to educators to principals to counselors to OTs and schools and all these things that actually can provide better education and services to our children.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellYeah like if you take that box and a drop down menu comes with an understanding like possibly has moved five times like you just all those things you just mentioned imagine how much more um understanding you could have and then as a teacher gosh like just empower people.
Guest Gwen Cherne AMAnd yet we have only been able to get successfully get that tick box and it's um optional in a couple of states. So they still aren't all on board. So you know every piece of this
Data Gaps And School Support
Guest Gwen Cherne AMis hard fought every small increment we make is hard fought.
Conversationalist Sarah MaxwellWow yeah well Gwen thank you for fighting the fight because on behalf of GMR in particular and the community that you impact you devote so much time and you advocate on behalf of like so many families when you're facing so much every day with your own family. So it makes a massive difference and we are so grateful that you were born with the kind of personality that could describe these things so succinctly. But again like I said at the beginning I didn't use the word resilience with you lightly because I know we do say that a lot now I actually wanted to go and get the definition and I went oh my goodness if this is not Gwen in terms of what you've experienced without permanent injury you may debate that but permanent injury aspect but again your ability to even laugh like we heard today.
Guest Gwen Cherne AMSo just thank you for um your service ultimately oh thanks for having me Sarah I really appreciate the work of GMR the work you're doing and um my my superpower is that I bounce you know I walk around with three U-hauls worth of trauma driving down the road behind me. But they bounce I like that but I bounce like it's there it's still there hasn't gone away but I am not letting it keep me down thank you for joining us for this episode of Voices.
Host Miriam KentWe hope you've been inspired by the courage honesty and generous spirit shared on today's episode our work only happens with your support so please visit us at www.galiferesearch.com dot eu. And now over to your part if you know someone who needs to hear this episode Please share it with them. And why not review our podcast so that others can hear voices of GMR? Don't forget to click the follow button so you can easily find that next episode. Thank you for listening. We look forward to sharing the next voice of Gallipoli Medical Research with you very soon.
