An Interview with Jude Simpson: Growing Beyond a Life of Abuse and Gang Involvement in New Zealand

Abstract

This chapter presents an interview is with a remarkable woman from New Zealand named Jude Simpson who, despite a history of abuse and gang involvement, has become a leading advocate for safe families and communities. In her public talks, and in her work directly with families, Jude brings her own personal experiences of abuse as a child, and the wisdom that comes with having overcome her violent past and grown into a successful woman in her late 40s. She explains how family violence had altered her life course and how it instilled in her troubling beliefs about herself. Her resilience, difficult to have seen beneath the troubling behaviors of her youth, was periodically visible to those who knew her and appreciated that Jude was doing the best she could to survive in an environment that offered her few choices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (introduction)