RECORDED Thu 22 May 2025
SUMMARY KEYWORDS: Charcot Marie Tooth, CMT Australia, disability advocacy, mental health, early intervention, inclusive education, accessibility, misdiagnosis, fatigue, surgical intervention, peer support, family fun days, school transitions, exam provisions, advocacy.
SPEAKERS: Megan Gilmour, Jillian Critchley, Hannah Joseph
Megan Gilmour 00:00
This episode is proudly brought to you by the TPG Telecom Foundation dedicated to creating opportunities to improve the health, wellbeing and education of Australian communities in need.
Hi, I’m Megan Gilmour, MissingSchool, Co-founder and CEO, and this is Live & Learn. This is the podcast that unearths insights at the intersection of health and education, building a powerful alliance to keep kids with complex health conditions connected to school from anywhere.The podcast is recorded on Ngunnawal land, and we acknowledge and pay respect to the traditional owners of this land and the land on which you’re listening.
Welcome to our weekly webcast, a place to zero in on the interplay between health and education and to amplify the voices of those supporting school students to navigate their educational journeys despite complex health challenges.
And today we have with us Jillian and Hannah. Jillian is an early childhood teacher and family daycare educator whose husband Peter and daughters Matilda and Eleanor all live with Charcot-Marie-Tooth, 1A – CMT 1A. A longtime supporter of CMT Australia, Jillian co-founded the CMT Aussie Kids Program with Peter to connect support and empower young people and families living with CMT.
Hannah also joins us. Hannah is an 18 year old year 12 student from South Australia living with CMT Type 3, a swim teacher and aspiring law student, she’s passionate about disability advocacy and as a CMT Aussie Kids Mini Mentor, she supports others facing similar health challenges.
Welcome Jillian and Hannah. We’re so excited to have you on Live and Learn today.
Jillian Critchley 01:59
Thank you, Megan.
Hannah Joseph 02:01
Thank you.
Megan Gilmour 02:02
So today we’re here to talk about supporting school connections for students with complex medical and mental health conditions. Let’s head into our first question. So, tell us how CMT impacts kids and why it’s something every Australian needs to know and care about
Jillian Critchley 02:25
So CMT, I think, from the start, we need to understand that it presents in a myriad of ways. It isn’t just one condition. There are over 100 types – you’ve just commented that our family have 1A, Hannah has 3. There are over 100 types. And in that way, there’s 100 ways that it can actually look.
So, I think that’s probably the way that it impacts kids. You can have kids from – not even noticing it and not being diagnosed until adulthood, or kids who have symptoms from at least early childhood. It is, in that respect, a bit of an invisible disability at times, I think, so that’s probably that the impact is varied.
Megan Gilmour 03:15
Hannah, do you want to add anything to that at the moment?
Hannah Joseph 03:18
No, I totally agree. I think that’s probably a misconception about the condition is that it has one look when really it doesn’t at all.
Megan Gilmour 03:27
And I’m sure we’ll get into that a little bit more. So, many people probably assume things about CMT. You’ve already kind of opened with some of those assumptions. What’s the million-dollar question that you get from parents or loved ones when their child experiences or is diagnosed with CMT?
Jillian Critchley 03:47
I would say when I have a parent ring us, because that’s often the first stop they’ve made after they’ve spoken to a neurologist and been diagnosed, the first question they ask is, ‘Is my child going to die, or is their life going to be shortened by CMT?’
The short answer to that, and is slightly controversial, is no, they’re not going to die, and it certainly will – CMT will impact their life, but it will just make their life look slightly different. The other thing that’s slightly amusing, because the full name of it is Charcot-Marie-Tooth, named after the three doctors who discovered the genetic problem in 1891, because they mentioned tooth people say, ‘What’s wrong with your teeth?’ So, I think that’s probably something that’s a little bit annoying, but it’s one of the misconceptions that we – I’m sure Hannah is able to address fairly immediately.
Hannah Joseph 04:39
Yes, absolutely. I’ve been asked so many times, what’s wrong with your teeth, when really nothing’s wrong with my teeth.
Jillian Critchley 04:46
You have beautiful teeth!
Megan Gilmour 04:49
Exactly, and thanks for you know, heading right out of the gate with that one, because I’m sure everyone has that question to where does this name come from. So, thanks for clarifying that and for letting us know that it’s not about teeth.
So, what is the most important thing that you want people to know?
Hannah Joseph 05:16
Um, I think probably just more awareness around the condition, but more generally, not underestimating people with CMT is a big one that I would say. I think that, in particular, when you are underestimated, not just by people that you don’t know particularly well, but perhaps even your teachers or your family, that you can kind of begin to internalise that, and that can be really limiting.
I think that that’s one of the great things about the CMT Aussie Kids is that it’s really the opposite of that. You’re really encouraged to give everything a go and tell that you can, you know, encourage to do so much. And I think that that’s really great.
So, I think that if there was one thing I would want people to know, it’s that people with CMT are very capable, and I want parents especially to know that if they have newly diagnosed children as well, that they can still live amazing, successful lives.
Jillian Critchley 06:11
And you know what? That’s really creepy, because Hannah has through this conversation, before the interview, sort of said I’d like to answer these questions, so I just made brief notes. My brief notes basically say that children with CMT can contribute to everything, as long as the support is there, but they need to be treated as an ordinary child.
And I say ordinary not normal, because the opposite of ordinary is extraordinary, whereas the opposite of normal is abnormal, and our kids are not abnormal, they’re extraordinary.
And I just I got goosebumps Hannah, because we haven’t discussed what she was going to answer, and for you to say that is absolutely – and I think that’s actually a reflection of most parents with children with a disability. They just want them to have the same opportunities that their able-bodied peers are having. And that’s and you’re right, Hannah, that’s what CMT Aussie Kids is trying to do.
Megan Gilmour 07:07
Yeah, that’s wonderful. And such an important message to start the conversation with. Because, you know, we can make sure that we hold that concept – not just a concept – but an application all the way through as we go into more detail.
So, I’ll start with Hannah, because I think we know a little bit about this answer. And then I’ll turn to Jillian. So, we’d love to know if you’re willing to share what brought you into the world of CMT,
Hannah Joseph 07:37
Yeah, so I was born with the condition. It’s a genetic condition. Usually it’s hereditary, so you get it from a parent, but it can also occur due to spontaneous mutation, which is what happened to me. So, nobody else in my family has it.
And I was not engaged with anyone in the CMT community until I was about 15, which is when I came on my first CMT kids camp. But yeah, prior to that, it was just me, the only one. I was involved in other disability spaces. But yeah, not CMT specifically.
Megan Gilmour 08:14
And what about you, Jillian,
Jillian Critchley 08:16
I sort of got hauled into it, not kicking and screaming. When I first met Peter over 30 years ago, on our first date, he actually mentioned his disability, and this is where we talk about that invisible disability I hadn’t actually noticed. So just noticed he walked a bit funny, but everyone’s got some strange gate or whatever. And so, he introduced me to the world of CMT.
And then, of course, as time wore on and we were married, and obviously, then we spoke about genetic inheritance and the impact on our relationship and whether we would have children with CMT. We ended up having, as we’ve mentioned before, two children who are now grown adult daughters with CMT. So, when they were born, it was sort of almost, well, this is it, Jillian, this is what you’re doing. I became involved with the organisation.
Before that Peter had been involved in the 70s, from the 70s in research, because research is still ongoing, obviously, to find not just a cure, but treatments for the CMT. And my mother-in-law had actually been involved before that. She was active in running as a volunteer, running the organisation CMT Australia when it was first started in the 1980s, so it was sort of a bit default, you know, I’ve gone in.
My mum always used to say to me, what would have you have done if you hadn’t met Peter? And what would have you I said I would have been passionate about something else. You know, there would have been something else I joined.
I’m one of those volunteers that get involved, and I think it’s absolutely close to my heart, not just because I have two children with it, and a husband and various other family members, but because I can see the difference that volunteering does for you know, people like Hannah, who’s able to express the community that we create, hopefully,
Megan Gilmour 10:04
Nothing like the lived experience to, you know, bring you into things and show you, well, what others just can’t see if they don’t live with, or have someone who’s living with, anything really, but in this case, CMT. Such a brilliant testament to both of you to use your own experience to be giving back to others as well.
So, knowing all that you know, what’s your biggest hope for kids with CMT, their families and loved ones when navigating this journey?
Jillian Critchley 10:41
I think I’ve mentioned it before. I just want my kids, and our CMT Aussie Kids, and every other child with CMT to have the same opportunities as their able-bodied peers. We need to work on treatments. We need to work on cures. But Peter often says, “You’re not a CMT child. You’re a child with CMT or a young person with CMT.” So CMT doesn’t actually define you. It is a part of you, just like you might be involved in scouting, or you might like sewing.
You have CMT, sure it impacts your life. We’re not, we’re not saying it doesn’t, but my biggest hope is that our wider community accepts all kids, and in particular, kids with CMT with open arms and offer opportunities for them to do what their able-bodied peers are doing right beside them.
Megan Gilmour 11:39
Yes, Jillian, and I love what you said earlier, which is about not just what we can do for children with CMT or living with CMT, but what they can contribute. That is a really key thing in all of our conversations. And I’ve heard it from both of you.
Jillian Critchley 11:58
And sorry, can I interrupt Megan, to say that’s one of the reasons why, when we started the camp 15 years ago, we just had the kids attending, and then as we as time wore on, we could see the value in having our mentors program, which is what Hannah is part of, so that it’s not just Peter and I who are in our you know, older group, age group.
Peter still has the CMT, and he’s a great example, but we wanted these kids to be able to relate to each other, and that’s why I think even our mentor program and our big kids program is so valuable, because it’s these kids sitting alongside Hannah in a wheelchair going, ‘Oh, wow, you just climbed up a wall’, just having an example that’s so much better than us sitting back going, ‘Oh yeah, go up the wall. You’ll be right’ you know.
So, the children’s and the young person’s voice, we really try to nurture, and that’s one of the reasons why we started on our Mentors and Mini Mentors Program. So sorry to interrupt, but that was a pertinent point to bring up then I think.
Megan Gilmour 12:58
Yes indeed. Thank you for adding that. And Hannah, what do you think of that, knowing all that you know, what’s your biggest hope for kids with CMT and their families?
Hannah Joseph 13:08
I think kind of just going off of what Jillian said that people just believe in the capabilities of young people with CMT and perhaps understand that we can still do everything. It might just take us a little bit longer; we might need some more support.
And I think I really want young people would seem to know that they’re still capable of so much and can do anything, and they might need a little bit more support, but that that’s okay,
Megan Gilmour 13:39
Great. Okay, so, if you could just tell us, I know there are, I think you said, 100 different presentations or more, what are some of the common and perhaps frustrating misconceptions about CMT, and perhaps you could start with some examples about how it presents? And how have you seen you know, those presentations create public misconceptions and impact therefore the kids and families?
Hannah Joseph 14:16
It’s difficult to talk about misconceptions, I suppose, because there’s just so little awareness about the condition, at least in my experience, that nobody really knows what CMT is, so they can’t really have any misconceptions about how CMT will affect you.
But I suppose a misconception is that I have some sort of other condition, and I think especially what we were talking about earlier, how there’s so many different ways that CMT can present, even if somebody does have perhaps a little understanding of what CMT might be, they don’t necessarily look at me and think that that’s what I have.
And that is not just the public. That’s also doctors and things like that, that don’t have that kind of awareness and that can be frustrating at times, and I’m sure it’s equally as frustrating if perhaps your CMT is more hidden. Mine’s not. I’m a full-time wheelchair user.
But that is definitely a misconception that people have, is that we have another condition, or that CMT only looks a certain way, and therefore you must not have it. And I think that that can really be a barrier, especially in navigating the healthcare system.
Megan Gilmour 15:29
Yeah.
Jillian Critchley 15:30
Yeah. I think also adding on to what you’ve said, Hannah, is that, so Eleanor, one of our adult daughters, has a disabled car parking permit, and she’s quite entitled to use it. She’s, you know, got the diagnosis, and because she’s young, she’ll actually comment. She’ll say to you, ‘I’m supposed to not have a disability because I’m young.’
And the amount of people who’ve actually bailed her up in the disabled spot and gone, ‘Oh, you can’t park there because it’s a disabled spot. And Eleanor says, ‘Well, I have a disability’ –‘Oh, how can you have a disability?’ You know, because they’re both in their 20s. And she says, ‘Well, I have.’
So, there’s that unforeseen frustration as well. And you’re right, Hannah, I support that fact that, you know, it’s a silent, it’s, you know, it’s not always there. It doesn’t look evident. Certainly, from Hannah’s point of view, she’s in the wheelchair. You probably don’t get as much pushback in the disabled parking.
And also, the other thing, and I had this conversation with Peter before I came on, fatigue is also something that’s often not discussed. And as much as our kids might not have chronic fatigue syndrome, in that way, there’s still fatigue, which is a major thing for our kids and adults with CMT to deal with. And again, that’s unseen.
So, it’s a misconception that, yeah, you walk a bit funny, or you know your feet don’t work, or you know your hands can’t do up buttons. But it’s a lot more than that, just struggling to keep up with everyday life.
Peter actually describes it as he wakes up in the morning and he feels like he’s already run that marathon. You know, ordinary people, able bodied people, they feel like that at nine o’clock at night, but CMT people will often wake up, and it’s just a battle of exhaustion from the word go, which sounds negative, but it’s being realistic.
And it’s listening to your body as well, and understanding that this is what’s going to happen, and you just need to find strategies to get around that.
Hannah Joseph 17:27
Yeah, and to add on to that point, Jillian, I think from the outside, especially when people look at me, they might just think, ‘Oh, her legs don’t work’. But in reality, it’s a whole host of things. It’s that fatigue, it’s pain, and I think when accessing things in school, because obviously, that’s it’s about missing school this podcast.
But people might not necessarily be as likely to give me the accommodations I might need, because it’s not necessarily as visible, the fact that I struggle to hand write things. So that’s definitely another misconception, is that it only affects your feet or your legs, when in reality, it can affect a lot more.
Megan Gilmour 18:08
And I’m hearing things that make this next question probably more pertinent, which is, is there a risk of delayed diagnosis, or are most cases of CMT picked up easily?
Jillian Critchley 18:24
The education of our medical and allied health professionals is ongoing, and that is something that CMT Australia, the organisation that I volunteer with, and has CMT Aussie Kids under it, is passionate about getting the word out. As I said, I’m not bagging out our neurologist, but in a lot of cases, the neurologist’s role is to diagnose and then move on.
And so, what often happens is we will actually have – and we have an example of a child that came to us in his mid-teens, and he was diagnosed with CMT, and we’re like, okay, great. Came to camp, and six months later, mum actually rang me and said, I’m devastated, it’s not CMT, but they don’t know what it is.
And I went, ‘Oh, okay, you can still come on camp’ like I think that was more what she was worried about anyway, as time wore on, six months later, it was CMT, but it was a new type they hadn’t even discovered, and it was through this genetic testing and things like that.
So, I mean, in some respects, that was great, because he still had the Community Connect to connect with, but it’s a perfect example of how we can educate doctors, neurologists and geneticists as much as we like.
It is the most common peripheral neuropathy, and yet it’s misdiagnosed, yes, and that also then impacts on, and again, you’ve mentioned, I’m an early childhood teacher, so my other passion is early intervention for children with disabilities.
So, we knew that our girls had it. They were diagnosed at 12 months through a blood test because we had the genetic history. We had my husband with it. We knew we had a one in two chance of having children with it. So, we knew from 15 months, each of them was going to have issues. They were slow to walk and all that type of stuff. So, we could actually go in and get the pediatric physios, get the OTs on board.
For the kids that we often meet. Not so much Hannah, because you’ve known for a while, but we’ll often have 15-17 year olds suddenly ring and go, or the parents ring and go, ‘Oh my gosh, what is this thing?’ and they’ve almost missed 15 years of intervention. And that’s just because of misdiagnosis.
Or we also we tend to get bundled into the muscular dystrophy. We are not a muscular dystrophy. It’s totally different to MDA, certainly, the organisation does great work for people with muscular dystrophy, and they do, in some cases, have Charcot-Marie-Tooth people on board with them as well.
But ultimately, we’re not MD, and that’s why we were actually also keen to run – because MDA runs a camp – we wanted to run a camp for our CMT kids, because looking at a child with MD and looking at a child with CMT are two totally different views.
But yes, in response to your question, Megan, yes, misdiagnosis is a major problem, and it slows down the intervention that we can do with our kids and our young adults.
Megan Gilmour 21:30
Yeah, thank you for letting us know that. And I heard you say peripheral neuropathy, and I’ve written it down so for people out there who wouldn’t understand what neuropathy means? Could you give us like a lay person’s view?
Jillian Critchley 21:45
Sure. So, I describe it, and I’ve always described it as everybody has messages that come from our brain to, in this case, our extremities, the periphery is your fingers and your toes, or your feet and your hands.
And there are really, really long lines of nerves that read the message that goes from my brain to my fingers or my feet and everywhere else. That’s how it is. That’s where the neuropathy comes from. Doesn’t actually impact intellectually. It is purely a physical disability.
And my description is Megan, yours, and my messages are on these great electrical things that connect, and we get the message straight away. We’re just about to fall over, our brain goes, well, hang on, you’ve got to make some – you’ve got to intervene to stop yourself from falling over them.
In Hannah’s case, let’s pick on poor old Hannah, because she’s the one with CMT sitting here. Her messages are a bit like this. Some of it will get through, but it’ll be quite slow, so by the time her brain has told her body to stop herself from falling, she’s on the floor.
And so, it’s as I say, it’s not intellectual. People hear neuropathy and go, ‘Oh, okay, have we got an intellectual disability?’ It’s just the messages that are going from – and the nerves, because in some cases, it affects the myelin sheath – we won’t go into all of that, but medically, it’s just the messages, and that’s why some kids end up with really high arches. You can’t do up your shoelaces or your buttons. Even Peter still. If he’s putting on his business shirt, I need to do the buttons on his wrist, because he just, his fingers don’t work.
Megan Gilmour 23:34
Is that? Could it be mistaken for MS. Is that happening?
Jillian Critchley 23:40
Yeah, we have MS, and we have MD. There’s, there’s all sorts of versions of things that people get mistaken for. MS, yeah, it’s both of them are certainly misdiagnosis of CMT, and it’s really only through the only way you can get a true diagnosis is through a blood test, is through a DNA test.
But then, of course, we find those challenges, that when you have DNA, that the panel looks different to anything else. Maybe it’s not CMT, or maybe it’s just another one of the over 100 that we’ve discovered.
Megan Gilmour 24:16
Well, fingers crossed that, as medical science advances and genetic testing advances that the diagnosis will be a much shorter one.
Just a quick one, Hannah, how long did it take for your diagnosis?
Hannah Joseph 24:34
Yeah, good question. So, I was diagnosed at two years old, which is, like, very, relatively young, and it did not take that long to get a diagnosis. But there was, and obviously I was two, I don’t remember it, but from what my parents have told me, there was lots of advocating that they did, simply because doctors just thought I was a lazy baby, or that I would eventually learn to walk. I never really did. I did eventually, but never well.
And so, after I got my CMT, type 3 diagnosis, which is characterised as early onset CMT, it connected me with a whole heap of health professionals that have kind of stayed with me until now, which has been great. So, diagnosis wasn’t particularly challenging for me, but that’s just kind of the luck of the draw, I guess.
Megan Gilmour 25:33
And I guess the early diagnosis speaks to Jillian’s point of early intervention and how much of a difference that makes. So how many Australian kids, or youth, are living with CMT right now?
Jillian Critchley 25:50
So, I crunched the figures, across the world, one in 2,500 people have CMT that varies. Sometimes the researchers go maybe it’s one in 2,200.
But basing it on that, we’ve got about 2,500 kids under 18 with CMT across Australia. That’s basing it on our population, 2500. Which is really surprising, because I can tell you, our database is only about 400 families long, so there’s either a lot of people who are being misdiagnosed, a lot of people who don’t know about CMT Australia, or the fact that there is even a support group for it, although that’s why we changed our name colloquially to CMT Australia, because we thought that’s something that people are going to search.
Or else and this is a valid point, there are some families who don’t wish to engage in the in the disability community, I suppose is the best way to put it. And that’s okay. That’s their choice. Sometimes they come to us later, and sometimes older, 18-year-olds will go, ‘Yeah, my mum and dad had their head in the sand, but I don’t, and I want to do something about it.’
So, yeah, yeah, we’re still looking at about 2,500 children under the age of 18 living with CMT.
Megan Gilmour 27:12
Well, I mean, that’s the reason it’s good to talk about these things and get the word out there, right, because somebody could be watching and experience a high degree of relatability, and have not heard of CMT, as Hannah pointed out earlier,
Jillian Critchley 27:28
Yep, absolutely
Megan Gilmour 27:29
Hannah, tell us about some of the complications that kids experience when they’re living with CMT,
Hannah Joseph 27:40
Yeah, a lot. So, we’ve already kind of touched on some of them, things like fatigue and pain. And a big one as well is there’s lots of, or can be lots of surgical intervention, most commonly on your feet, just because of the way that nerves work, basically, you can have abnormalities and things like that.
But also surgeries on hips and spine, all sorts of things, but yeah, most commonly on your feet, but then some of the other things, like just speaking in my experience, I have a mild scoliosis and hip dysplasia and a little bit of respiratory weakness, which I did not know that that was a symptom of CMT until I was diagnosed with it last year. So just goes to show the lack of awareness, I guess. But yeah.
Megan Gilmour 28:32
And what about you? Jillian,
Jillian Critchley 28:33
[Matilda] was eight and underwent two surgical procedures when she was nine, with the view that she would keep her hips until she was in her 40s. I’m just about to tell you, in a week and a half’s time, she’s going to be going to have a hip replacement.
So as a 27-year-old, that’s my Matilda. She just takes it on the chin, like all of you guys do, but you know, it’s quite confronting for someone of that age. And she’s also a registered nurse working in a she’s in a, in an executive role at the moment, because the CMT works well for that.
But you know, when you think about having hip problems to the point where you need to have a replacement at 27 and I think the other thing that maybe Hannah, you’ll nod now, and it’s a problem, I would say, across the board, with all children with disabilities, is mental health.
And it does tend to be the flavour of the month when you talk about it, but you’ve mentioned that Hannah at school, kids will look at you and, oh, you’re in a wheelchair. Okay, you might be discarded, or you might have a good group of friends. We were fortunate that our girls had friends who were true friends and would actually stick up for them and hold their arm out when they were going down the stairs.
But we do find quite a prevalence of young people who are having real mental health issues, bullying, you know, and non-acceptance, even down to – and school is always a bit of a challenge, because, as Hannah has said before, parents and young people need to be advocates for themselves.
If they – you know, I use the example of Eleanor – we went to the local public school and the general government high school, and we spoke at length with them about both of our girls’ needs, and they had a lift that was great, but the lift was locked. Or the lift was at the other end of the school, where, in that case, Eleanor had to walk the length of the school to use the lift to go down to then walk back.
Like, as much as the schools are doing their best, especially with the finite resources of – I imagine – of the state government schools, it’s still really quite difficult for them to navigate that. So that also impacts your mental health. It’s not just having to walk there and back.
It’s then having to say to your mates, um, can you come with me to walk that kilometer and a half to the lift, and in the end, they would actually just piggyback her down the stairs or something like that, because it was easier.
So yeah, it’s, you’re right, Hannah, all the, all the foot stuff, absolutely, and the hands, we have children with, you know, difficulty with hands or fingers and stuff. But we’ve also got to look deeper at the mental health impact of having CMT.
Megan Gilmour 31:23
Do you want to speak to that as well Hannah?
Hannah Joseph 31:27
Oh, I couldn’t agree more. I’m actually surprised it didn’t cross my mind to write it down.
Jillian Critchley 31:33
It’s because your spirit is such that you wouldn’t get yourself dug down with it. But it is a piece, and it’s something we need to address really, importantly, absolutely.
Hannah Joseph 31:42
Yeah, I think, um, it’s not, like obviously, surgeries and things like that take a toll on your mental health, but it’s – exactly what Jillian exactly what Jillian has pointed out – all of the social isolation that comes with having CMT really takes its toll on your mental health.
Not just physically not being at school, perhaps when you’ve had surgeries and things like that, but coming back and potentially not having those solid friendships to really lean on can be difficult or having to miss out on activities because you can’t participate. Things like that can be really frustrating, particularly for young people.
Megan Gilmour 32:21
Yeah, thanks for raising that, because after Hannah gave her original answer to this question I was going to ask it, but you stepped in, Jillian, and we’ve rounded back to Hannah. So that’s really great.
And I say it’s great because we do need to have this conversation. We do need to create that awareness that’s not out there, where it could be a physical disability, in this case it is, or even a physical, medical condition, and what we know is that the two go hand in glove.
And wherever the issue starts, it affects the other parts of us. So, you know, we’re whole people that we often see this, this splitting of, ‘Oh, you have a disability, you have a medical condition, and you have mental health issues’.
And we talk about this at MissingSchool as the Venn diagram, really, of things that a young person might be dealing with, and not just those things, but the, you know, they could live in a rural or remote area, they could have other socio-economic issues.
It’s an intersectional, you know, we’re intersectional people as well. And, you know, to make sure that everybody knows that these things go together, and that adds to that level of invisibility as well.
So, you know, we can only see the outside, we can’t see the inside. And it’s a big point that we make to government as well, because there seems to be a hyper focus on mental health now, and rightly so, but we don’t want that to come at the expense of physical disabilities or medical conditions that need to be included in that conversation as well. So, we’re really advocating to not look at these things as silos.
So, as we head into the bit that’s a bit more detailed on school, I’ll kick off with a question for both of you on how are siblings and peers of kids with CMT impacted, and what should families be across or even schools for that matter?
Jillian Critchley 34:52
I’ve written three words to the response to this. It’s the same as everybody else who have children with a disability. It’s about involving the siblings. We actually had – previous to now – we’ve had three sisters, two of which had it, and the other one didn’t. And the two sisters used to come to camp, and the one who didn’t, would cry, because she wanted to come to camp, which I think really shows that it’s not about the camp. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about being included and being inclusive to our kids with CMT.
Now, certainly we don’t run a camp for siblings. We could, but we have a life as well. We’re sort of just trying to keep it prioritised for the for the kids at the moment and the young adults. But I think any challenge, and we didn’t have that challenge, because the two children we had both had CMT, you know, I think any challenge that you would have when you have a sibling who doesn’t have it, we’ve started to address because we’ve actually had what we call family fun days every year across Australia and New Zealand where everyone can come.
So we’ve been to the zoo, and we’ve been to like an amusement park, and just financially, just fundraise to be able to support, you know, the purchase of the ticket, so that mum and dad and, you know, sometimes three or four kids can come and that that unaffected sibling can actually see that there is some benefit in having a big or little sister or brother with CMT.
And it’s all about again, coming from an early childhood point of view, it’s all about addressing your parenting as well, and acknowledging that it can be a struggle to parent somebody with a disability, but it can be even more of a struggle to make sure that the non-affected child isn’t feeling alone or ignored.
Yeah, Hannah would probably have better words to say on that, but that’s how I feel about the siblings’ impact.
Megan Gilmour 36:55
Thank you.
Hannah Joseph 36:56
Yeah, that’s absolutely, absolutely true. I have a younger sister that doesn’t have CMT, and I think one of the great things that my parents did in raising us was just they’ve treated us very equally, very normally.
Obviously, there were some like, I would need some extra support to do things, or I’d have appointments that I needed to go to, and so I’d need, I guess, a bit more attention in that respect. But in every other aspect of our lives, we were very much treated equally. And that doesn’t mean that she didn’t, you know, I know at times she would have definitely struggled.
Perhaps I’m a bit of a different older sister figure than what other older sisters might have been, but, you know, we still fight like normal sisters and do everything the same as normal. So yeah, but I think the best part about our childhood was that we were treated very similarly, and that, I think, aided her in not feeling so alone.
Jillian Critchley 37:58
I also think that people like Hannah who have the attitude that she does, and she’s an extremely positive young woman, as you can see, her resilience is actually a really good example for her younger sister, and her parents are part of that.
I know her parents very well, and we know their commitment to bringing up two even minded young women. But I think maybe your little sister is actually looking up to you and going, ‘Wow, how I want to do things’. Yeah, you can still have an argument, but, I think, yeah, developing resilience in both kids, the affected and unaffected, is really important as well,
Megan Gilmour 38:37
And we’ll probably pick up a little bit of this in some of the next questions about siblings and peers. We’ve talked about data. What’s the current population of school aged children with CMT. And then how accurate with is this? Is the data tracked, for example, in Australia?
Jillian Critchley 38:56
So no, it’s not. And again, I’m basing my numbers on school aged, you know, dividing the population by the one in 2,500. So we’ve got approximately 2000 children within the school system aged between, from kindergarten to year 12. So, we’re looking at about 2000 across Australia.
Megan Gilmour 39:16
Yeah, and it’s good to note that one of the other organisations we talked to quoted me in saying, no data is data in itself, and this all the time. We don’t have the data. It’s not tracked.
So, and that’s why organisations like, like the ones that you’re involved in, is so important to keep registries and all of that sort of thing as well. But we do eventually want our governments to do this better.
So, do kids with CMT currently miss a lot of school, and if they do, why?
Jillian Critchley 39:58
Go for it Hannah!
Hannah Joseph 40:00
I mean, just speaking from personal experience, yes, a lot of school, particularly, unfortunately in my senior years of high school, which is a bit unfortunate, that’s just when I’ve had two major surgeries in year 9 and year 10 of high school, and I ended up missing over a term of school.
For both of those, I spent, like a bit less than a week in hospital and then six weeks in a cast, where I was not very independent at all, so I couldn’t go to school. And then after that, I had six weeks of rehab, and my rehab was at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide, which is over an hour away from where I lived.
So big commitment for my family, and yeah, I certainly missed a lot of school, and then just ongoing appointments all the time, and that’s been from like when I first started school all the way until now.
So yeah, I definitely missed a lot of school, but I am very lucky that I’ve had some incredibly supportive teachers and school environment that have supported me, and I’m quite just academically motivated myself, so it was never a big issue.
I suppose the more challenging stuff was definitely the social isolation that came from just physically not being there with my peers, and less so the struggles academically.
Megan Gilmour 41:27
And thanks for making that differentiation again, because naturally, parents, families, certainly teachers and schools and school systems are often focused, well after the health issue or the disability, often focused on school achievement, academic, and so even for somebody who has missed a lot of school, and you mentioned being motivated, which is fantastic, and really just shows that with support and that motivation and maintaining engagement, and, you know, early intervention and so forth, kids can really thrive, even academically. And I think that’s so important.
And alongside that, one school term is 10 weeks. So that’s, you know, two lots of 10 weeks you miss there, plus all of the other time off school. So even though Hannah’s presenting as someone who does well at school and is motivated, just to pause and think about how that would feel to be at home, or in a clinical setting, away from your peers, and away from home and what that experience might entail for any of us, but particularly for somebody who’s dealing with, you know, the physicality of that situation as well, and the mental health aspects of it.
Hannah Joseph 42:51
And just, sorry, just to add to that as well, I think I was quite lucky that I had I missed those big chunks of school after COVID came through. So online learning was really everyone was very used to it. So, I was quite lucky in that sense, that I could still connect physically in the classroom.
But yeah, that social isolation, especially when my peers didn’t really understand why I was gone for so long. They didn’t really have an understanding about CMT other than just little things that I had told them, you know, I told them I was getting surgery on my feet. They thought I’d be back in like, a week, and I was not. So, um, that was definitely the hardest part.
Megan Gilmour 43:33
So, are you saying that you were able to maintain a telepresence in the classroom when you were in a clinical setting?
Hannah Joseph 43:39
It was an option for me to, and I had a great teacher that offered to zoom me into all of my classes if I wanted, but I was not really feeling up for it, so I rarely did, but I definitely did have that option, and some amazing teachers who facilitated that for me as well. If that’s something that I wanted.
Megan Gilmour 44:00
I’m pleased that you said that, because the offer of it was the critical point here, and that’s what we fight for. So, it’s not about forcing kids, it’s about actually providing – offering that to the student and the family as the business-as-usual offer in this day and age, in the 21st Century, so that, if possible, that person could join in. And we see it happening all the time over in our world, here in MissingSchool. So, it’s really lovely to hear that your teachers did that and were offering that to you.
What are the critics, some of the critical times in the school life of a kid with CMT, and what should families and schools be prepared for at these different times, or critical times?
Hannah Joseph 44:53
Obviously, I’ve already touched on one, which is surgery. That’s a big one, and providing the opportunity for online learning, to be able to stay connected to the classroom and with teachers and things like that.
But also, I had written down here big transitions in school life, so moving from primary school to high school, or I know at the high school that I was at year seven was you just kind of stay in the same room with the same teacher, there wasn’t a lot of moving around.
And then in year 8, you’re going all around the school to all different classes with a whole heap of different teachers who perhaps didn’t understand that. I couldn’t handwrite my notes. I had to type them things like that.
So, I think talking to the student about what their needs are, how they can better be met, perhaps what their expectations might be during these transitions, and whether they’ll be able to manage and what support can be provided to them is really important.
Megan Gilmour 45:47
Yeah
Jillian Critchley 45:48
I think exactly. And that’s the child’s voice, the young person’s voice coming through. But then what we do is we piggyback on that, the parents’ advocacy, again, having had two daughters go through and I imagine Hannah, you’re the same, once we hit high school, and you know you and I must read minds, because my word says transitions.
But once we are in high school, we realise very quickly that Eleanor, in particular, our younger daughter, was going to have issues with her handwriting. We already knew that.
So we had engaged occupational therapists before, but that OT really stepped up to do a lot of reporting, communicating back to the school about exam provisions, to the point where, once we got – so putting in support mechanisms – exactly what you said Hannah, but from a parent’s point of view, then advocating for the child to ensure that the opportunities they were actually going to have, from an exam point of view, were actually going to help them get through those exams.
Now Eleanor is a perfect example of that. She’s similar to Hannah five years ago, Eleanor is now a fifth-year law student, but she knew she needed to get an ATAR, or a final mark, because we’re in New South Wales that was pretty good. She needed to be in the 90s.
She knew that the exam provisions that she had up until the final exams were adequate and enabled her to show her skills and her knowledge and her academic abilities. But once we hit the HSC, once we actually hit the final, the government takes over. And Megan, you’re talking about government and advocating for this through the government agencies in New South Wales. It’s called NESA. It’s New South Wales Education Standards Authority.
We, and without breaching Eleanor’s confidentiality, we had massive conversations with NESA about what Eleanor needed. With so much evidence from many, many sources she still didn’t get what she needed, in our opinion, and not just our opinion, to the point where she chose the subjects, like I imagine, Hannah, you did as well, the legal studies, the business studies, the complicated whatever, because that’s what she wanted to do. She wanted to be a law student.
So, she knew, actually, in the end, even with the provisions that she had, she wasn’t going to finish the exam. So, what she’s doing during the exam, which I’m sure Hannah you’re doing as well, was actually looking at the whole exam and going, ‘Okay, I’ve got three hours plus my rest period or whatever. What is the least amount I can lose if I don’t finish?’ So, she might do the three essays, and she wouldn’t do the short answers,
Megan Gilmour 48:37
So strategic, strategically choosing
Jillian Critchley 48:40
That’s right, but that’s also being strategic during an exam scenario, when you have a time [limit], it’s your HSC, there’s so much pressure. So, the fact that that NESA, really, in that case, didn’t come to the party.
We also then got to the Human Rights Commission. It got to that point, and they reviewed her, and I actually spoke to the assessor through human rights, and she said, ‘Yeah, look, we’re a bit of a toothless tiger when it comes to NESA’.
That’s disappointing, because that’s telling me, you know, how we started this conversation about, and that’s exactly what Hannah said, offering all people across the board, whether you’ve got CMT, MS, whatever, the same opportunities as our able-bodied peers, Eleanor was not offered that.
And so, in the end, of course, she beat the odds, and a bit like you, Hannah, she was determined, and she managed to get those marks to get into uni. But why should children and young people with a disability have to work harder for the same privileges that our able-bodied students have already got?
And that’s something from a MissingSchool point of view. I’d love to see that advocacy, and I know what I’ve just said is probably a little bit controversial, and there’ll be others who think, ’Oh well, you’re alright. You got there,’ but it was still, why should that …”
Six weeks before the HSC, we were having conversation with the Human Rights Commission, we actually didn’t tell Eleanor, first of all, because she already had enough going on. In the end, we had to, because they needed to talk to her. So, you know, it just, yeah
Megan Gilmour 50:13
Look, I think this shouldn’t be controversial, because any public authority is, you know, should be democratically able to handle conversations about this. And I think it’s a particularly strong example to hear, and I think these are the conversations that need to be had.
These are the things that need to come out, and people need to know it’s not just you, because we’ve heard this story a lot, and we’ve heard this a lot about NESA. We’ve heard it about other, you know, parts of the system as well.
But obviously NESA has to uphold a certain standard. That’s what it is, the Standards Authority. But there’s something not joining up there when the Disability Standards for Education, which is a national regulation under the Disability Discrimination Act, which sits under the Commonwealth Attorney Generals, and is all about providing equal opportunity through adjustments, throughout every single school in Australia, or every single education institution. So that includes early childhood. It includes, you know, VET sector providers, obviously, you know, in higher education, universities as well.
So, I guess coming from a curiosity point of view, why would the HSC and standards in one state not match what the Disability Standards for Education require at a national level?
That’s my question, and because that’s what I hear when I play back what you’re saying is those provisions, those adjustments, were not being able to be applied in that year 11 and 12 situation. And we’ve really heard some, some very, very upsetting things about year 11 and 12, and since we were talking about transitions a moment ago, and how critical they are in any person’s life, and the kinds of pressures they bring anyway, that to be doing that and needing to do that at such a crucial time, we need to address this. We need to do better.
And thank you for raising it. It is this kind of evidence that helps us to, I guess, collectivise across all of the organisations we talk to, is to draw that out and say this isn’t coming up just once. This is coming up often. And so, I think that is the benefit of these conversations from a data point of view as well.
Jillian Critchley 53:13
Can I point out very briefly, the end story that, of course, she got into uni, and now in fifth year, doing a double degree in psych and law. The university that she went to didn’t actually care what exam provisions she’d had in the HSC. They basically addressed it right from the word go and said, ‘What would you like?’ And then we go there, we know what she’s getting. And that that’s like, Eleanor was like, oh, okay, extra time to rest, or like extra time to type.
And the other interesting thing really quickly is that 10 years ago, everyone handwritten their exams, handwrite their exams, now they’re typing. So, Eleanor’s typing speed is slower than an ordinary person, so her advantage over typing is actually eliminated because everyone else is now typing, but they’re typing faster than she is because she has a disability. Yeah, you’re right Megan, let’s go on,
Megan Gilmour 54:06
Yeah, but the summary line for me in that is, these adjustments were provided all throughout school, but then something happened in year 11 and 12, like, how at a very crucial time, that was removed, that was not allowed. I don’t get it. Sorry. My brain can’t compute.
Jillian Critchley 54:25
That makes all of us!
Megan Gilmour 54:31
Yeah, so thanks for raising it. We, you know, we have these conversations with the utmost respect to all parties involved, all institutions involved, and the people in them are beholden to the institutional requirements.
Jillian Critchley 54:44
That’s correct,
Megan Gilmour 54:46
But they do have to, it does have to be talked about. I’m glad we got to roll the DSE into that, because I had a little dot point that said DSE, so that was a perfect kind of segue.
So, into the last part of our call now. What are the biggest challenges and vulnerabilities then at school? Others? Is there anything else that we need to cover? I think we’ve talked about mental health issues, and we’ve talked about navigating school environments. We’ve talked about, obviously, adjustments, whether they’re given or not given. Is there anything else we’d like to pick up here?
Hannah Joseph 55:28
I don’t particularly have anything else to add. I was really going to reiterate the isolation that can come from not being at school and also not being able to participate in activities, particularly when we talk about vulnerabilities and things like that, my mind instantly goes to like PE in high school and not being able to participate, and the toll that that kind of took on me.
But then what a difference it made when I had an inclusive teacher who was willing to involve me or get me involved, make those accommodations, and amazing peers as well who are willing to support me, that that really made all the difference.
And that’s all I can hope for every young person with a disability or with CMT, is that they also have peers like that and teachers like that who are willing to make all the accommodations to have them be included, because that’s all we really want. And I don’t think that it’s necessarily a big ask.
Megan Gilmour 56:27
I love that contrast too, the way you shared with us how it felt, and I guess excursions too, and other things like that as well, anything that involves a kind of physical expectation. And then to hear you say that the people around you, and a shout out to all those teachers out there and peers who are making a difference, just with some adjustments, that this is truly possible. It’s not outside the realm of possibility.
I think that’s the point you’re making here. Hannah, it’s pretty easy to do if you think about it and you’re conscious about it.
So, Jillian, do you want to add anything to that?
Jillian Critchley 57:10
I think again, I was talking to Peter earlier on, who is the one with CMT, and accessibility and inclusivity are words that are bandied around a lot now. They’re very popular words. Now we’re ticking our boxes because we’ve got a disabled person or a woman or, you know, an Indigenous – I’m just choosing these random things.
But what does accessibility look like to Hannah is different to what it looks like to me, or to Megan, or to the school and we, and I discussed, you know that the lift sort of situation but properly addressing those accessibility issues is not exclusive to people with a disability. And Peter’s comment was, and I quote, properly addressing accessibility is good for everyone.
Megan Gilmour 58:04
Yeah, I love that. I love that
Jillian Critchley 58:07
Yeah, well, I’ll tell him that you love it, because I loved it. When he told me that, I said, Can I write that down? I like that, yeah. So, can we please credit my husband with that one?
But it’s not that people with a disability are different, it’s just they have different needs, and different ways to be supported, to get the same, this is my cry all the way through, to get the same opportunities that they’re able-bodied peers are given automatically.
Our schools are providing, you know, and it’s becoming more and more with children with ADHD or on the spectrum and stuff like that, with ASD, it’s becoming more and more acceptable that we do have children who need to have accessibility and inclusivity discussed.
But why does it mean that someone like Hannah, who’s a full-time wheelchair user, has to work over and above that just to still get the same – it’s not even about rights. It’s about human rights
Megan Gilmour 59:03
It’s because we haven’t designed for disability. And I think that’s, you know, there was a great TED talk, and the person, the premise of that TED talk was, if you design for disability, everyone wins. So, it’s what Peter’s saying. I say the same thing. I say if schools were designed for kids who can’t physically be there, we wouldn’t have absence. Yep, you know it’s – those children would be attending, for example, through telepresence.
That is a classic accessibility issue. That’s why we call it telepresence, and not virtual or distance learning. We’re saying you’re bringing that person into their classroom, which the standards asks you to do and with assistive devices, whether it’s a wheelchair or wheelchair ramp, or a telepresence that can provide that access to not only the classroom, but learning alongside peers, to the curriculum and to support that a school can give when that connection is made.
And Jillian, you’ll know this as well is, that connection with the family, with the parents, relies on the student having connection to the school. So, you know, a family’s separation from the school increases when accessibility isn’t enabled. So, everybody’s relationships get pulled apart.
Jillian Critchley 1:00:32
And I think that’s what we find as well when we do have parents, as I’ve discussed, who might be calling when their child is, you know, a teenager, and they’ve just been diagnosed, and so this whole ability to advocate for your child is new to them.
And the conversations that Peter and I particularly have with newly diagnosed parents, and I say that on purpose, because the child’s been diagnosed, but the parents are also dealing with this, you know, this new story that they hadn’t originally thought was going to happen with their child.
We’re actually teaching through the work that that we do, or the conversations that we have, or even from CMT Australia’s point of view, from our organisation’s point of view, we’re actually teaching parents how to advocate with all the stakeholders, with, you know, with NESA, with the Department of Education, or the equivalent, with the teachers at the ground roots.
And Hannah is a perfect example of working with her teachers to be able to get a result that has enabled her, hopefully positively, to be able to go where she wants to go. But again, we just keep coming back to Hannah has just as much right to that accessibility and that opportunity as the next young person.
So again, through CMT Australia, we’re trying to advocate and certainly talking to families is one stage of advocacy and helping them learn how to support their child in that journey for want of a better word, but it’s also having those ground roots, like having the membership making sure that we are advocating and talking to our researchers.
We have a lot to do through Aussie Kids with this, we actually visit a local researcher who’s based at Concord hospital. So, we have those as family fun days. You know, let’s come and look at the worms under the microscope and stuff like that.
So, we’re also educating our researchers and seeing that they can see the difference of looking down the microscope and doing their genetic stuff, and how that relates to people like Hannah, and how that can make a difference to people like Hannah.
So as much as its school based, and that’s what this conversation is about, I just wanted to point out towards the end, that from CMT Australia’s point of view, not just advocating for the child or the young person or the adult or the aged person.
It’s about helping others, educate everybody about CMT, and you know, how we can give them an accessible, equal life.
Megan Gilmour 1:03:09
Yeah. Bravo. Hannah, what do you want to add to that, if anything?
Hannah Joseph 1:03:15
Yeah, I think my final thing, and we touched on it earlier, about how accessibility isn’t just beneficial for the person with CMT or the person with a disability, it’s beneficial for everybody. And I think that that’s really important when we’re talking about kind of this school context, is that if my peers see physical accessibility and inclusivity of me as the norm, then hopefully that they’ll take that with them throughout their whole lives and implement accessibility and inclusion in their lives, because I am, hopefully not the only disabled person that they’re ever going to meet.
And so hopefully, if we can create more inclusive and accessible environments for young people with disability in their schools, it’s not just helping them to be academically and socially successful but also helping their peers to learn about what true inclusivity and accessibility looks like, to promote it everywhere in our world.
Megan Gilmour 1:04:10
Yeah, here, here, I agree with that. And just the way we’ve seen our world, our country, our spaces, adopt this broader thinking around differences between people, and we’re all human, but then we’re all different within that. And how do we actually get better at – better and better actually – and just keep improving in terms of the way that we see the world and other people and providing a space for everyone that’s enjoyable, comfortable and allows them to thrive and reach their potential.
And I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I echo what Jillian was saying earlier about these terms, like access, equity, inclusion, participation, and the way they just roll off the tongue, you know? And the way that I summarise that, and I’ve been summarising that for myself, and the way that I want to talk about it in future, is to always say, those are process goals, not outcome goals.
So, it means we’re doing it. We’re not just aiming for that as an outcome. You know, ‘Oh we were inclusive.’ No. Inclusion is active. It’s happening now. Is it happening or isn’t it happening? Participation? Are people able to participate? Is it happening now? Is it not happening now? You know, it’s a process, rather than some highfalutin’ outcome that’s measured later – it needs to be measured in the moment.
So, as we get to the end, and this has just been such a juicy, wonderful conversation, and thank you so much for it. Is there anything else that we should be asking about school quality of life for young people with CMT
Jillian Critchley 1:06:17
Hannah?
Hannah Joseph 1:06:19
Honestly, I think that we’ve really covered it, it’s been such a great conversation. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I would just like to sum up by saying that I hope, and this has been reiterated throughout all of our conversations, but I hope that the outcomes for young people with CMT or young people with disability in their school can be the same as their able bodied peers, and that they are provided with the same opportunities as their able bodied peers to be successful, and hopefully that translates to their entire life.
Jillian Critchley 1:06:52
And I think Hannah is a perfect example of a young person with – I would use the word severe Hannah simply because you are permanently wheelchair bound – that sounds depressing, but it’s being realistic. And I know that that Hannah is very realistic.
But I think Hannah’s a perfect example of what a positive, reflective, intelligent young woman looks like with CMT, and we’ve got many of them, but when we first addressed this podcast, Hannah was the first with a hand up and said, ‘I’d really like to do this’. And I can see, and I’ve known Hannah for probably five years now, and I can see that the future of CMT and the kids and their positivity is very much embraced in the words that Hannah’s using.
But I think across the board, if we have the inclusivity and the accessibility and the – you know – all of that bundled up into one – to my chant, let’s just give everybody an opportunity to be equal, not an animal farm George Orwell equal but an equal that represents something that is attainable for all.
Megan Gilmour 1:08:05
That’s a great call to action. And Hannah, do you have something to sum up in seven words or less as a call to action.
Hannah Joseph 1:08:16
No, I think that it’s hard to sum it all up in seven words or less. So, no, I don’t I think just our entire conversation really covers it all. And I don’t really think it can be summed up in seven words or less,
Megan Gilmour 1:08:34
And I know Jillian’s been full of praise for you, Hannah, I know you feel the same about Jillian, and I certainly do as well to have people in the world who are willing to give up their time, devote, commit their energy, passion, their gifts, to support other people, to be able to hold up a lived experience opportunity like the one that’s been created by Peter and Jillian for kids, as well, to bring people together.
And that lived experience, shared experience, situation, so much makes sense, and there’s so much you don’t have to say. So that’s so much that you can therefore do and enjoy, be understood and have fun like this is about fun too, right? It’s about living, and that’s why we call this Live & Learn.
And of course, you know, I do want to celebrate Hannah as well, and I do want to give that shout out to that looming legal profession. And I wonder how that will be put to good use to make change as well.
But certainly, Hannah, you do, represent such a beautiful spirit and potential for other young people. You know, there’s that thing about you can’t be it if you can’t see it. So, thank you for bringing your full self to this.
Hannah Joseph 1:10:11
Thank you so much, thanks for having me. And I’d like to just acknowledge that I probably wouldn’t be as confident of a young person if it wasn’t for role models that I have in the CMT Aussie Kids and Jillian and Peter for supporting me.
Megan Gilmour 1:10:25
Yeah? Well, that’s certainly Yeah. That’s certainly speaks to the impact of those kinds of initiatives and interventions, right? It’s just everyone gets lifted by them.
And so, we certainly want to close off here by giving a big shout out to CMT Australia as well. And you can find them over at CMT australia.org.au [https://www.CMTaustralia.org.au] and CMT Aussie Kids as well. Is CMT australia.org.au/CMT-aussie-kids/ [https://www.CMTaustralia.org.au/CMT-aussie-kids].
One way or another, if you’re looking for it, I know you’ll find it. And give and give generously, participate, give your time, shoot some dollars through to these initiatives, because you’ve heard here today how much difference they make to the people who are running them, as well as the contributions of the people with CMT and the kids with CMT, who can bring themselves fully to the experiences and add their value and gifts to the world as well.
Thank you for joining me today, Jillian and Hannah. It’s been amazing.
Jillian Critchley 1:11:36
Thank you, Megan.
Hannah Joseph 1:11:37
Thank you so much.
Megan Gilmour 1:11:42
Thanks. Everyone for tuning in. Help us turn up the volume so all kids are seen and heard. Follow along, like, share, comment, or leave us a review, because we love hearing from you. And if you want to donate, head to htttp://www.missing school.org.au, because every dollar makes a difference.
View the episode here.
