Kelly Wilkinson Foundation launched to help families of domestic violence homicide victims

Murder victim Kelly Wilkinson was renowned as a loving, giving person – someone who ‘would give you the shirt off her back’. Now an extraordinary new initiative is being launched to keep that spirit alive.

When Danielle Carroll thinks of her sister Kelly Wilkinson she remembers a “selfless and giving” person, someone who was always putting others first.

“She was an absolutely beautiful person who was such a people pleaser. She was a feeder, that was her love language. She’d come around and there was just food, food, food. She would give you the shirt off her back.”

That spirit of generosity, of helping others, will be at the heart of a special event on Friday when the Kelly Wilkinson Foundation is officially launched at an event in Surfers Paradise expected to be attended by 175 people.

The foundation has been founded by Ms Carroll in honour of her sister, whose life was cruelly cut short in a horrific domestic violence murder at Arundel in April 2021.

Following Kelly’s murder, Ms Carroll and husband Rhys took in her three children, taking their family of seven to a family of ten.

Danielle Carroll has launched the Kelly Wilkinson Foundation to help families cope with the aftermath of domestic violence homicides.

It’s that experience of picking up the pieces in the most dreadful of circumstances that has inspired the foundation, which has been founded to support the children of domestic violence homicide victims and their caregivers.

“Imagine (as a child) losing your parents in one day, going and living with your grandparents and then all of a sudden they can’t cover your schooling cost, so it’s like, ‘sorry, we’re going to have to move you’ and you lose your friend group. It just makes the problem worse and bigger so if we can step in and say we can cover the cost of that for you, it’s just a relief for that family,” Ms Carroll said.

“It can make a world of difference if someone is to step in and say, we’re going to walk beside you long term, and we’re going to stick with you right until that child is of age.”

Ms Carroll said the foundation, which was already supporting one family, would work with people to understand their individual circumstances and provide them with the support they most needed.

For Kelly’s young children, those needs included dealing with the horrors they had witnessed.

“They are in for a lifelong journey. This isn’t something that is just going to go away in the next few years,” Ms Carroll said. “It’s something that’s going to pop up constantly, when they have their first partner, when they have their first baby, engagement, wedding, all of those things. It’s just going to constantly be a cycle of, you know, I don’t have my mum or my dad here for that, because of what he did.

“They saw enough, they experienced enough with their own eyes, to know. I think for them at this age it’s really trying to process, in a way that’s age appropriate. There’s a lot of things they come out with that’s quite shocking. Just little things that, they saw things happening at home and this is what it looked like. They obviously saw what happened as well that day.

“ … The kids have been into therapy, so they do that. But one thing I want to do as a foundation is broaden our options, and for us to be able to offer alternative therapies. So the government doesn’t cover anything like that at the moment. So that would be equine therapy, art therapy, also things like kinesiology, sound healing, because kids don’t always go to therapy and talk. So this gives them another avenue to express themselves without, I guess, trying to form together the words which their brain can’t – they just don’t know how to put it into words at this point.”

Danielle and Rhys Carroll now care for eight children – their own and Kelly’s. Picture: Glenn Hampson.

Ms Carroll said the foundation was also inspired by the level of support her family had received from the Gold Coast community. Something, she said, not every family receives.

“One of the first things Rhys and I said when everything first happened, because we had such big community support, we said we wanted to give back in some way,” Ms Carroll said.

“A few people asked are you doing a Foundation, what are you doing, and I just thought it would be a waste for me to turn around and say no I’m not doing anything.

“There was so much support and people saying, if you start up I’m there with you. And it just happened so organically.

“I just think it fits in perfectly with what Kelly was like as a person. She was such a selfless and giving person.

“So the opportunity to help families affected by domestic violence homicide, it just came together.”

FOR MORE DETAILS VISIT WWW.KELLYWILKINSONFOUNDATION.ORG

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