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Ex-Student Profile: Esther McKay
40 EX-STUDENT PROFILE: ESTHER MCKAY
When Esther McKay graduated from PLC Sydney, she planned to study law. When she didn’t get the marks for law, she found herself working as a ‘Girl Friday’ at the local newspaper. While she was initially drawn to journalism and writing, she instead decided to choose a career adjacent to law and enter the police force.
“I was still interested in law,” she recalls, “And that was why I joined the police force. I thought I could explore the opportunities in prosecuting or get to know more about the law.”
Esther first applied to the police force at the age of 19 but had to wait 18 months to get to the academy thanks to a 25% quota on females joining the force. Frontline policing wasn’t for Esther but she was drawn to scientific investigation, or what is now called forensics. She knew this was what she wanted to do and after two years of applying for roles, she secured a permanent position.
Over the years she worked in scientific investigation, Esther faced many challenges. She had a male superior who didn’t believe women should be in these types of roles. There was no training, except for on the job training and the equipment was inadequate, with ill fitting gloves and overalls for women. “I did some research and found a forensic medicine course at Sydney Uni,” she explains. “After that I was really informed and felt I had the expertise to do the job. But the workload was huge. We were working on call and what we were actually seeing was absolutely horrific.”
After three years in the role, Esther was having bouts of uncontrolled crying and felt like her life was falling apart. She wasn’t provided with the psychological support she needed and this laid the foundations for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that she was diagnosed after the birth of her second child.
After leaving the police force, Esther went on to write two books. The first was about her story. “I wrote the first book because I felt like what had happened to me was a story that needed to be told and learned from so it didn’t happen again,” she says. “Concerns about the stress levels and workloads fell on deaf ears. The book started as a yarn about police but it ended up being a really serious story about a young woman who embarked upon a horrific role with no support.”
Esther then went on the speaking circuit to advocate for change. She also started the Police Post Trauma Support Group to give other police officers the support they needed. “I was getting emails from so many people from so many walks of life about their struggles, grateful that someone was now talking about it.” For the past 17 years, Esther has run the Police Post Trauma Support Group as the Founder and President. She has helped hundreds and hundreds of police officers through crisis intervention and other initiatives. She has worked with the Quest for Life foundation to design a trauma program and with NSW Police Legacy on their BACKUP for Life program. She is also a mental health consultant for the Police Federation of Australia.
Despite the challenges she has faced, Esther has no regrets. She also credits her strong work ethic and community mindset to her years at PLC Sydney. “PLC Sydney set me up really well to believe in myself to be able to achieve anything that I wanted to,” she says. “They gave me a lot of confidence to go into male dominated roles. I didn’t think it was going to be any sort of impediment that I was female and I think that really got me through. We always did a lot of community activities at school, like the pet show and volunteer work. This has helped to shape my future, running a charity for 17 years.
“The girls I went to school with were really friendly and funny. We still talk on WhatsApp every day and our friendship is based on positivity and laughter. A lot of people never find happiness but I was really happy at school.”
You can learn more about Esther and her work at www.esthermckay.com.
