The chairman of the Coalition for the Protection of Children is to step down after more than 25 years with the organisation she founded.

Sheelagh Cooper, who was executive director of the charity for decades before she became chairman, is to refocus her efforts on another cause as she will head Habitat for Humanity, which works to create high-standard affordable housing.

Ms Cooper said: “It has been 26 amazing years, and for 20 of them I ran the Coalition as executive director. Although I will remain on as a board member, it was time to let someone else take the helm.”

Ms Cooper said it felt “wonderful” to see new coalition chairman Jevon Williams take over “this important role for the community”.

She added the was inspired to create the Coalition in 1992 to help the island’s children. Ms Cooper said: “The Coalition for the Protection of Children was born out of a need to “create the political will and build the energy” towards a revamp of Bermuda’s “woefully inadequate” legislation to protect young people, which dated back to the 1940s.

She added: “The early years were difficult because of the resistance to re-evaluating the way that we view children. It was very much the view, and to a certain extent still is, that children are possessions rather than human beings.”

But she said: “We’ve come a long way. No one in those early years talked about child sexual abuse and few people recognised that there was even such a thing as physical abuse.”

Ms Cooper explained the island lagged behind other countries to recognise “shaken baby syndrome”, a cause of head injuries. She said: “That changed considerably with the growing awareness worldwide of the impact of abuse.

“There has been a major shift in attitudes over 25 years. We can’t take responsibility for that by any means, but certainly we opened the dialogue.”

Ms Cooper added that many of the concerns about child abuse came from government workers, who found it difficult to speak out.

She said the Coalition was “established to provide a voice”.

Ms Cooper added concern was still voiced by government departments today.

She said the Coalition provided “a vital role for advocacy and changing legislation”.

Ms Cooper added: “If our lobbying falls on deaf ears, our approach has always been to try and fill the gaps ourselves.”

She highlighted the Coalition’s school breakfast programme, now provided at 15 schools.

Ms Cooper added: “Not to be cynical, but it doesn’t escape my notice that if you fill the gaps, the chances of having government step up and provide assistance is reduced, not enhanced.”

She added another success was family mediation, which the Coalition provided free for 15 years to help families settle their disputes.

The programme had 92 referrals from the family courts at its peak and was adopted by the Government in 2015.

Ms Cooper, a qualified criminologist, said her philanthropy sprang from dissatisfaction with her professional life.

She explained: “It became abundantly clear that a portion of Bermuda’s population was being left behind.”

Her research on 15 prison inmates locked up for murder and other violent offences showed that all came from single families. Ms Cooper said: “There was very little positive contact with a father, and what contact they had was often abusive.”

She added, many inmates “spoke very positively about their mothers”, although more than half said their mothers had been “addicted to drugs, and thus not emotionally available”.

Ms Cooper said she believed that “the fact that they spoke of such positive attributes about their mothers was more a matter of unrequited love, the drug use was a critical factor in their lack of emotional development”.

Ms Cooper said work with the coalition was “hard” but that she was “incredibly grateful” to have the support and backing of her husband, Alex.

Habitat for Humanity Bermuda is an all-volunteer group that aims to target 12 needy families a year and to repair and restore homes.

The group works with the Coalition to identify clients.

Ms Cooper said: “Last year, we exceeded our goal and completed 17 projects. It’s very busy. Again, I’m very fortunate to be able to do that work, and I enjoy very much the opportunity to make a difference.”