Still Standing

Chrissie Foster was born in Victoria and grew up in Black Rock, a beachside suburb on Port Phillip Bay. She worked as a public servant for nine years, during which time she travelled extensively around Europe, the US and Mexico. She married Anthony in 1980 and by 1985 they had three beautiful daughters, Emma, Katie and Aimee, whom they raised in suburban Melbourne with what they hoped were the right values.

Chrissie could not have known that the stranger-danger she feared actually lurked in the presbytery attached to the girls’ Catholic primary school, with both Emma and Katie victims of clergy sex abuse. Chrissie’s heartbreaking account of her family’s suffering – and of the Church’s lies, silence, denials and threats – Hell on the Way to Heaven, was published in 2010. The Foster family’s case was one of those that prompted the establishment of the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Non-Government Organisations and the subsequent Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Chrissie has since continued to fight for justice and redress for victims and survivors of child sexual assault by Catholic clergy. In 2018 she jointly won the Australian Human Rights Medal with Chief Royal Commissioner Hon Peter McClellan. Then, in 2019, Chrissie was named in the Australian Honours List as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) ‘For significant service to children, particularly as an advocate for those who have suffered sexual abuse'. Her ongoing activism inspires others to challenge once-powerful male-dominated institutions.

Paul Kennedy is a national television presenter for ABC News Breakfast. He has worked for three television networks and has written three books, including co-authoring Hell on the Way to Heaven (with Chrissie Foster), one of the triggers for Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

He lives on the eastern shore of Port Phillip with his wife, Kim, and their three sons, Jack, Gus and Leo.