1. First thing in the morning when you wake up, do you look at your phone? If so, what do you search?
As much as I hate the thought of looking at my phone first thing, at CPR Kids we are all working parents, so there are emails often sent before the kids wake up in the morning! After a quick check of the emails, the phone is then banned until the kids are off to school.
2. Are you a coffee or tea drinker and what kind?
I am a recent tea convert. I only started drinking tea when I became pregnant with my second daughter – I craved it! My favorite kind of tea is the one that some else has made for me.
3. You always imagined growing up you’d be?
Helping people. It was just mum and I growing up, and she had lots of mental and physical problems and needed my care. I naturally gravitated to helping others, and I always thought it would be something medical.
4. Biggest misconception of children choking?
That you need to do the Heimlich Maneuver (abdominal thrusts). This can actually damage their soft internal organs. Stick to the back blows and chest thrusts (and if you don’t know what I mean by that, you need to do a paediatric First Aid course!).
5. When women are negative it makes you…
Wonder why. I want to know what has happened in their life that makes them feel or act that way, and how I can help them to help themselves.
6. When women support one another you…
Want to celebrate. This is how it should be. It takes a village to raise a child, and a community of supportive women for us to flourish in all areas of our lives.
7. One thing you keep close to your chest with CPR (until now is)…
Your hands (sorry bad CPR joke). It is the CPR Kids mission to shout the lifesaving skills of recognition and response to sick or injured children from the mountain tops, so all families know what to do in an emergency. So I don’t keep anything close to my chest about this!
8. To all those women who are negative on social media you’d say…
Keep it to yourself. You have no idea what is happening in the other person’s life. That is a human being on the other end of that post, not just a picture on a computer. Words are powerful, use them wisely and with kindness.
9. If you could express one piece of QueenHood advice to working women you would say…
You are enough. You don’t need to be more. Know your strengths, play to them, and surround yourself with others who know way more than you do about the other stuff.
10. You started CPR Kids because…
I spent 15 years as a paediatric emergency nurse, and I know that the actions taken by a parent in those minutes before an ambulance arrives have a direct impact on the outcome of their child. I am blessed to know what to do if my girls are sick or injured, I want all families to have this lifesaving knowledge.
11. The worth you feel working is…
Part of being true to myself. My family know that I love them first and foremost, and I love my job. I am a better mother, wife and person because I work. It is an integral part of my identity and self worth.
12. When you’re in work mode you are best described as…
Efficient, calm and solution focused.
13. The legacy you hope to leave is… A world where learning paediatric CPR and First Aid is seen as an integral part of preparing for the arrival of your new baby. Simply part of the routine of getting a car seat fitted, taking birth classes and buying a pram.
