Dolly’s Dream co-founder Kate Everett named NT News 2025 Woman of the Year
Dolly’s Dream co-founder Kate Everett has sparked a national conversation about the devastating impacts bullying can have, and is a powerful voice advocating for a safer and kinder Australia.
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The NT News named anti-bullying and youth suicide advocate Kate Everett as the 2025 Woman of the Year.
Territory couple Kate and husband Tick founded Dolly’s Dream after their 14-year-old daughter Dolly took her own life seven years ago.
Out of personal tragedy, Kate has sparked a national conversation about the devastating impacts bullying can have, and has been a powerful voice lobbying for a safer and kinder Australia.
Since its launch, Dolly’s Dream has rolled out free educational workshops in hundreds of schools across the country, established a 24/7 helpline, developed a support app, and led successful policy reforms.
May 9 was “Do it for Dolly Day” and was the biggest one yet – thousands of businesses, schools and community groups nationwide coming together to wear blue, raise awareness, and attract what is expected to be more than a million dollars in donations for the cause.
Growing Dolly’s Dream into the force it is today has been no small feat - and all juggled around the Everetts’ day job running a trucking business and raising their other daughter, Meg.
Kate is driven by the desire to prevent any other family from going through the same pain.
“There’s been days where we’ve, you know, cried on the edge of motel beds … but for the most part we’ve used that to fuel a fire,” she says.
The Everetts were living on a remote cattle station in the Katherine region when Dolly was dealing with relentless cyberbullying - far from doctors, counsellors or their daughter’s school.
They now live closer to town, along the Katherine River, but Kate knows first-hand how difficult it can be for regional and remote families to get support, and she’s worked hard to remove some of those barriers.
“I’m proud of the app and the helpline, giving that accessibility to help, and breaking down that stigma about reaching out,” Kate says.
“We raised our children in really remote areas of Australia, and that accessibility to help has been at the forefront of what we do.
“We also delivered free workshops to 25,000 kids last year, so that’s incredible – that makes my heart burst because there’s been days when I didn’t know if we’d get to that point.”
The thing she’s most proud of, however, are the stories from teens who have overcome bullying and mental health struggles.
“Those impact stories are the most special, when you genuinely know that the cause, and us showing up every day, has changed the course of someone’s life.”
Bullying remains a widespread problem in Australia, with estimates one in five children are bullied and one in four cyberbullied.
Last year the federal government introduced laws to ban social media for under 16s, following this masthead’s Let Them Be Kids campaign.
Kate says the age limit is a positive step, but will not work unless it is implemented well.
“Games aren’t included in the ban, and gaming can be a nasty platform – it can also be a fabulous platform,” she says.
“We need to make parents aware of what their child might be accessing, and teach children how to be good people.”
What Kate really wants to see is a national framework to help standardise a zero-tolerance approach to bullying.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re at a high school in Palmerston or an elite private school in Melbourne, you should have the same protections,” Kate says.
“We need this national framework so there’s an understanding that this is how the schools deal with it, this is how teachers are supported, how parents are supported.”
“That’s the goal - this national standard will never go away until we’ve got it.”
Alongside nationwide ambitions, Kate also finds successes closer to home; remembering Dolly’s laugh, and looking at what her daughter Meg has achieved.
“When you talk about the good things about Dolly, it almost sounds like we’re making it up, because she can sing, and play the guitar, and ride a horse, and go to work, and work as hard as any man that we had working for us, she was just incredible,” Kate says.
“She’s so funny, honestly if I close my eyes I can still hear her. She has the kind of laugh that’s contagious. You could be in a very cranky mood, and if she laughed, you would be laughing with her.
“And I look at our daughter Meg, who’s now reached her goal of becoming a chopper pilot and I just think - to do that and to build this strong, little human out of complete devastation is a really good reminder that we’ve done okay.”
Seven years on, there are still challenging days, but Kate’s humility and drive to help others remains steadfast.
“There’s days when my husband operates at 90 or 100 per cent and I feel like I’m failing at life, and there’s other days when I am the strong one, and he’s struggling,” she says.
“But I guess the true measure of leadership, or anything like that, is how well you’ve helped other people.
“Right from the start, we said that we didn’t want any other families to have to do this by themselves, so it sounds really odd to say but we’re really lucky to have something to pour it all into.”
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