Sarah Smits
"My whole life has changed. I never expected to have kids. But it has been the best thing. This is the space I want to work in. It was from Lynn giving me that chance that I’ve been able to be where I am today."
"I was a new mum with no friends. Coming here, I made a lot of friends in the community I can reach out to. They had this wealth of knowledge. They’d teach us how to parent, that no parent is perfect."
Someone took a chance on Sarah Smits.
She was a young mother of a young child, and she had a partner of two years. Sarah loved them both deeply. She loved helping people. That much she knew. But Sarah didn’t have any friends with children. She didn’t know what she wanted to do for work. “I didn’t know how to be a mum,” she recalls. “I didn’t know anything, really.”
The Centre Leader at the Child and Family Learning Centre (CFLC) in Ravenswood, where Sarah lived, believed differently. A new role had come up at the centre, and the manager suggested Sarah apply. “She said, ‘Go for it. I think you would be great at it.’ And I got the job.” At 2.5 days per week, the role meant Sarah could work at the CFLC and bring her son, Charlie, with her to playgroup there. “My whole life has changed,” she said. “I never expected to have kids. But it has been the best thing. This is the space I want to work in. It was from Lynn giving me that chance that I’ve been able to be where I am today.”
Today, Sarah supports families that are just like hers when she was growing up.
Sarah was born in Launceston, and she spent her childhood in nearby suburbs. Her favourite place was Waverley, about 10 minutes east of the Launceston city centre. Her primary school was a home away from home during some of the toughest times. “I had joy at school,” she recalls. “I had friends, amazing teachers, and six hours of freedom every day. At school, I could be myself. I could just be the person I wanted to be.”
Sarah’s childhood home was filled with love and commitment, but also anger and fear. It took many years for her to make sense of what had happened around her. “I grew up in a home with family violence,” she says. “For most of my life, we didn’t realise it because my mum hid it from us so well.” For Sarah, it was a long road from realising what was happening to understanding it, and from understanding to feeling at peace with her mother’s decisions. “I was angry for her being in that situation, for having to hide everything from us, for not feeling safe and loved in our own house.” It was a parenting course at the CFLC that helped her process her experiences. “We talked about trauma and our backgrounds, and it wasn’t until then that I was able to say to her, ‘I’m sorry I resented you for not leaving.’”
I’d feel these mixed emotions. I was happy to know he felt like himself when he was young. But not being able to meet my great grandfather and know his traditions was hard.
When Sarah was 16, she went to TAFE to study aged care. It was there she discovered people like her, with a passion for community. “I absolutely loved going to TAFE, around people my own age with the same passions,” she recalls. It turned out Sarah didn’t need to try to please anyone; she started making her own choices about what she wanted to do and who she wanted to be. Sarah moved in with her nan and pop in George Town, working and studying. Her pop started teaching her to drive. A new world began to open to her.
“I’m an Aboriginal woman, and Pop was part of the Stolen Generation,” Sarah says. Sarah knew about this part of herself, but she hid it because of racist comments at school. “I was an Aboriginal girl being called all sorts of stuff.” Moving in with her grandparents gave Sarah her first chance to connect to Culture. “My great grandfather was a snake catcher, and Pop used to talk about things they did together. I’d feel these mixed emotions. I was happy to know he felt like himself when he was young. But not being able to meet my great grandfather and know his traditions was hard.”
Sarah’s pop passed away in April 2023. “He’s not here to talk about any of this anymore,” she says. But he and her nan helped Sarah at a critical moment in her life. “They took me out of a situation where I wasn’t feeling comfortable or safe,” she reflects. “They let me into their home, not knowing a lot about me, because they’d missed a whole chunk of my life growing up.”
Sarah’s mum taught her to be resilient and protect their family. She taught Sarah to never give up on herself. Once she finished TAFE, Sarah missed her mum and moved back in with her, into the two-bedroom unit she shared with Sarah’s siblings. “She made space, like she always did for her children,” Sarah smiles. Sarah didn’t have her licence yet, and her mum, who has “never, ever been a morning person” drove her to work for 7am starts. “She would do anything for her kids, and I think that’s why I gravitated towards moving back in with her.”
Sarah was 20 years old when she and her partner, Jonathan, had their first son, Charlie. “One day it just clicked that I’m a mum,” she recalls. Her whole perspective changed, and she reached a turning point where “enough was enough” in her relationship with her dad. “It was really, really hard. Really hard. But I can’t put myself or my kids through that. It was a relief but it was heartbreaking and devastating to let that part of my life go.”
By that time, Sarah’s mum was volunteering at the CFLC, a free service for expectant parents and families with children from birth to age five. Tasmanian CFLCs work with their local communities to provide a unique mix of kids’ activities, parenting groups, and appointments with professionals like child and family health nurses and speech pathologists. Sarah started bringing Charlie to baby groups. “I would call myself introverted,” she says. “I was a new mum with no friends. Coming here, I made a lot of friends in the community I can reach out to. They had this wealth of knowledge. We’d do developmental milestone info sessions. They’d teach us how to parent, that no parent is perfect. I could come down and have a coffee and adult conversations. If I was at home 24/7, I would not have coped. It was feeling part of a community of mums.”
At the CFLC, Sarah was able to step into Culture for the first time. “I didn’t know what being Aboriginal meant. When I started working here, I started learning more about what my culture meant for me. It’s really important to learn about where you come from, and Elders are very open and welcoming. Find someone at the centre and ask, ‘Can you teach me? Can I learn from you?’ It’s about me learning what I can teach my children. Now I know what they expect of me and how to be respectful to them in return.” Now Charlie and his younger brother Leo are growing up with a deep connection to their community. “It wasn’t until I started learning about my culture that I now feel like someone.” The opportunity to live and work somewhere that matters to her, to experience her culture here, is what connects Sarah to Tasmania.
I want our kids to grow up knowing they should be respected and treated how they deserve to be treated. We both work full-time. We both do housework. We look after the kids equally. You see the end goal, and that gets you through the hard times.
Sarah most wants to focus her work on the first 1,000 days in a child’s life - from conception to age two. She wants to help parents understand everything they have to offer their children, how much they matter. She talks to families about their past and her past, encouraging them to take the next step. “It’s easy to get lost in the hard stuff. It’s breaking that cycle and becoming who you want to become, not letting it drag you down – thinking ahead about your future and your kids’ future.” Sarah and Jonathan strive to live these values, showing their children a loving mum and dad who would do anything for each other. “We don’t take each other for granted. I want our kids to grow up knowing they should be respected and treated how they deserve to be treated. We both work full-time. We both do housework. We look after the kids equally. You see the end goal, and that gets you through the hard times,” she explains.
As Charlie and Leo grow older, Sarah’s gratitude has deepened. Her mother and sister, her husband, her community and Elders, her kids, and her mentors at the CFLC have helped create the Sarah she now is, a person she feels proud to be. Her CFLC Centre Leader, Donna, has mentored Sarah for the last three years. “Donna has seen the potential in me, and the world needs more people like her,” Sarah says. “The continuous encouragement from Donna has led me to believe in myself again, to know I am worthy of reaching my professional goals. Because of her, I’ve applied to do social work at uni. If you have someone think you’re a great person, a great worker, that you can do anything you put your mind to, to trust you to be in a space with community who are vulnerable … If someone gives you a chance and you can make something of that chance, you’re going to thrive no matter what, no matter where you are.”
We worked with northern Tasmanian photographer Nick Hanson for this Tasmanian story.