She spent time in the care system and then looked after her brother, niece and nephew – and now Cheyenne has her heart set on making a difference in other young people’s lives.

The Riverland woman spent time living with her Nanna, an auntie, cousins and a foster carer, and later, in independent living accommodation, where young people receive support to develop important life skills leading up to adulthood.

Cheyenne was just 19 when she became a kinship carer for her brother in Mildura, in Victoria’s Sunraysia region.

“We were only five years apart and he didn’t really want to listen to me. That was a little bit tricky, but I did get support,” she says.

Despite those challenges, Cheyenne, now 27, later also generously took on the care of a family friend, and then her niece and nephew, saying her door was “always open to anyone”.

These days the childcare worker is supporting vulnerable children as a volunteer driver at the Department for Child Protection’s Berri office.

During National Volunteer Week (18-24 May), the Department for Child Protection is celebrating the vital role more than 200 volunteers, including Cheyenne, play in creating safe, supportive environments for children and young people in care.

She drives children all over the Riverland so they can see family members or participate in activities, spending hours on the road to ensure they don’t miss out on joining in with friends.

“I thought it would be good to be someone who I needed when I was going through that,” Cheyenne says.

“I love putting my time and effort into things that will help others. So when the opportunity came up, I thought, ‘That’s so cool, I want to see how I can help’.”

One of her recent regular passengers was a primary-school aged girl, who thanks to Cheyenne travelling a 300km round trip, was always able to get to her Scout group.

“She was really chatty and fun and we’d play games on the road, and we bonded through that,” she says.

It seems Cheyenne’s generosity knows no bounds – she has also previously volunteered in a school canteen, and supporting young people through a school holiday program; in 2019, winning the Youth Volunteer Award from Mildura Rural City Council.

In the future, she’s interested in pursuing a paid role in the child protection system – potentially as a social worker, either directly working with children or supporting kinship carers.

The Department for Child Protection is hosting a lunch for volunteers across South Australia at Sunnybrae Estate in Regency Park, in northern Adelaide, on Wednesday, 20 May.

For more information about volunteering, visit childprotection.sa.gov.au/volunteers or call 0492 000 743.