Joy-ful service

Alumna cited for pastoral care in classroom and community

Joy Perkins (Biblical Studies Certificate, 1974) wanted to be the kind of teacher she needed at school, a teacher who would “inculcate curiosity, resilience and the love of learning.”

A return to tertiary study after experience in ministry and in the fitness industry enabled this change of career. Joy’s arts and education degrees reflected her interest in drama and English. She taught these subjects and another favourite, history—“having colonial roots fostered a love of Australian literature”—to students in her first classrooms at Grant and Glossop High Schools. Joy took on a wider teaching load at Sydney Adventist College. After its closure, she returned to South Australia, teaching again at Glossop, at Roma Mitchell Secondary College, Blackwood High School and now Rivergum Christian College.

Joy has become an advocate for protecting and supporting children. She founded South Easterners Against Child Sexual Abuse, wrote a child protection booklet for students at Glossop and, while completing a graduate certificate in counselling, developed a case study of students with special needs at Renmark High School to help understand childhood trauma, grief and loss. She is now completing a master’s degree in counselling at Tabor College. It will complement her other role as a celebrant for married couples and grieving families in the Riverland. Most of the weddings are for former students. One couple even named their baby Harper Joy because they loved the way Joy taught To Kill a Mockingbird.

Invitations to bring, as director, a Shakespeare play back to the stage and to provide counselling support for members of the Renmark RSL show other community recognition of Joy’s experience and skills. She has also received awards for her playwriting and contribution to the professional development of fitness professionals.

Joy remembers the respect with which lecturers at Avondale such as David Currie, Arthur Ferch, Allan Lindsay and Arthur Patrick gave her, in contrast to her brief foray as a stage and screen entertainer. “I soaked in the learning from these role models.”

The Class of 1974 honours Joy Perkins for her pastoral care of those in the classroom and in the community.