About Regine

I started my first job at fifteen in Denmark:

I worked for a roof over my head and three meals a day as an ‘all rounder’ in an orphanage that was home to sixty children.

I was expelled from high school, pregnant and homeless.

Working hard, seven days a week, I earned a scholarship to go to a boarding school to finish high school after some authorities took my baby away for adoption. I didn't get a choice.

My next job was teaching a group of ladies dress-making skills, something I learned at the orphanage.

At nineteen, a three-year scholarship enabled me to study to become a teacher.

But my heart took me to Africa and then to Canada, where in my mid-twenties I trained as a Nurse’s Aid taking care of Aged and frail people in a 400-bed Nursing Home before I had an offer from the Children's Aid Society (CAS) to work as a live-in teacher/childcare worker/ housemother in a CAS Group Home.

I helped eight homeless juvenile delinquent boys learn why and how to change their offending and prepare for foster and adoption placements.

Three years later I migrated to Australia, where I spent the next eight years as a live-in residential care facility manager, teacher and housemother taking care of nineteen children who were physically and intellectually challenged.

They learned sufficient life skills over those eight years which enabled them to move out and live independently.

I found Australian nature and wildlife fascinating. It inspired me to study horticulture, applied science, conservation & park management. For the following nine years I worked for the National Parks & Wildlife Services.

The wellness of our planet ultimately depends on the wellness of humanity.

—Regine Andersen

With a passion for learning and helping less fortunate, troubled and homeless people, I entered correctional services in 1995.

I worked in security, case management and crisis care and facilitated medium and high-intensity rehabilitation programs in prisons in SA and WA for over fifteen years.

At 59, I transferred to immigration services as Client Services Manager (CSM) to work in detention centres on Christmas Island (CI).

A few months later I joined the welfare team, teaching English and facilitating health & wellbeing programs in support of hundreds of asylum-seeking families, who arrived by boat from Indonesia between 2010 and 2016.

Many fled their home countries to escape torture and trauma.

Detained indefinitely, they lost all hope for a brighter future.

Helping them rebuild their confidence and seeing them regain new hope made the last six years of my work on CI turn into some of the most rewarding time of my life.

When I retired at 65, I decided to write about my unusual life (part 1)

and about my learning and work experiences, drawn together in my manual, part 2: how learning self-help strategies through conscious choice, we can create calm and confidence, change stumbling blocks to stepping stones and help us triumph over extraordinary challenges.

I hope that reading my book inspires others to never fear the worst but always hope for the best and never give up trying to be the best we can be.