All Karen Gilliland ever wanted in life was to be a mum, but the nurse’s first attempts at having children didn’t turn out as she had hoped.
She lost her first son when he was three weeks old, then miscarried twins. When her three youngest children arrived, she loved them “more than anything in this world”, her brother Bryan Cranston says.
The children are fond of karate, makeup and Sudoku puzzles, he says, and all three have inherited their mother’s love of books, reading whenever they can.
In June last year, 42-year-old Gilliland was stabbed to death at her home in Rockhampton, central Queensland. Police have charged Gilliland’s ex-husband, Nigel Gilliland, with murder and entering with intent. The case is ongoing. Gilliland has yet to enter a plea.
Losing a parent, most commonly a mother, to domestic homicide is a deeply confusing and traumatic experience for a child, says Dr Joe Tucci, a psychologist and chief of the Australian Childhood Foundation. But specialist services available to children who experience this in Australia are limited and there is no national protocol to provide immediate or ongoing support.
Guardian analysis shows at least 24 people under the age of 25 lost their mother in an alleged domestic homicide in 2020. As many as 1,000 young people in Australia may have lost a parent to domestic violence in the past two decades, says Eva Alisic, an associate professor of child trauma and recovery.
But the fact that the actual number is unknown “says it all”, she says. “These children are often overlooked.”
Tucci says: “They carry with them terror, they carry with them responsibility and guilt, they carry with them confusion. [Trauma] reverberates into the child’s life.”
For Cranston, helping his nieces and nephew navigate life without their mother is now his focus. But he says support systems need to be better designed so they don’t make what is already a heartbreaking experience harder for families like his.
In order to provide financially for the children in the immediate aftermath of Gilliland’s death, Cranston set up a crowdfunding campaign. He and his mother and stepfather then sold their respective houses and moved in together to raise the three children.
Initially the family was “inundated” with offers of support, Cranston says. “But after the funeral, there has been nothing. It’s not until a couple of months afterwards when things start to slow down and you get into your new role and life, that is when you really need the help.”
Due to living regionally and the impact of delays related to the Covid pandemic, the family waited several months before they were able to speak to a counsellor, something they organised themselves through a local GP.
Cranston says the family would like “a single point of contact” to help to guide them in their new roles as guardians. Instead, they have been left to navigate numerous government departments and services on their own. “There’s a lot more that people have to go through than the general public may realise.”
Legal arrangements have been complicated because the children’s father hasn’t yet gone to trial, and Cranston has had trouble with basic things like accessing the kids’ immunisation records and getting them added to the family’s Medicare cards.
“You would think in the situation where a mum has been killed and the legal status of the dad is in limbo, we would have a rigorous system in place,” Tucci says. “But these are very common issues for guardians and carers to have to deal with.”
Alisic says Australia can learn from countries such as the Netherlands, which has a national protocol for the care of children in the aftermath of a domestic homicide. The Dutch protocol “makes sure that services are alerted and able to provide immediate assistance”, Alisic says, “and that psychotrauma experts are consulted regarding mental health support and communication with the children.”
A spokesperson for the Queensland minister for the prevention of family and domestic violence, Shannon Fentiman, says families affected by domestic violence homicide are eligible to apply for victims-of-crime compensation.
But Tucci says that even if you can afford to pay for them, the availability of specialist support services is “potluck”. “The more you live outside of metropolitan areas, the less likely you will be able to access support that is specialist.”
Luke Mancuso says he and his brother Daniel are still coming to terms with the impact of losing their mother seven years ago.
In July 2013, 49-year-old flight attendant Teresa Mancuso was stabbed to death by her estranged husband, Fernando Paulino. Paulino was convicted of murder in 2017 and is serving a 25-year jail sentence.
“It didn’t feel real at the start,” Luke Mancuso says. “She was such a kind and loving and selfless person.”
He was 20 at the time, and struggled with anger and sadness. But it wasn’t until years later that the trauma really started to set in. “I found myself really depressed,” he says. “I found myself in some financial burdens. My self-esteem was really low. I was quite lost. We didn’t just lose Mum, we lost our father as well.”
The Mancuso brothers say they have been able to access counselling and victims-of-crime compensation, but the funds are limited. “It wasn’t the amount you’d need to help you get on with your life or set up for your future,” Luke says.
The biggest support for the brothers has been their extended family and community in the Melbourne suburb of Reservoir. But it was the generosity of their elderly neighbour, who they call Yiayia – Greek for grandmother – that showed them how to honour their mother’s legacy.
They started an Instagram page, Yiayia Next Door, to share videos of the home-cooked meals Yiayia shared with them over the fence. After media coverage, the page grew into a social enterprise selling merchandise to raise money for domestic violence services and promote safe, connected neighbourhoods.
“We are our mother’s legacy,” Daniel says. “We want to show everyone how amazing Mum was by being the best men we can be.”
A spokesperson for the minister for families and social services, Anne Ruston, did not respond to the call for a national protocol for the support of children left behind by domestic homicide, but said in a statement that young people would be a focus of the successor to the national plan to reduce violence against women and their children, which is due to expire in 2022.
