Squash on Tuesdays and Thursdays, badminton or tennis on Wednesdays, and cricket on Saturdays.
Adi’s week is jam-packed. And it got much easier once work and home were in the same town.
When he started at Brophy in January 2025, he was splitting time between Hamilton and Warrnambool for a role he loved in the Housing Support and Linkages team. The only trade off was the kilometres in between.
Now he’s fully Hamilton-based as an Intake Worker at headspace, and it’s made a real difference to work-life balance.
“(Less commuting) been life-changing,” he laughs. “I’m able to play a lot of sports, and I’m able to cook at home.”
From COVID support worker to headspace
Adi’s path to community services started during COVID, when he took a job as a support worker. It pulled him in. He did a short course in support coordination, then worked as a support coordinator and case manager for an NDIS provider, helping people with hospital transitions and supported and medium-term accommodation.
From there he joined Brophy’s Housing Support and Linkages team, working with adults through housing and tenancy programs including Support Residential Services Outreach and Assistance, Tenancy Plus, before changing lanes to headspace Hamilton.
The common thread he’s carried through every role? Rapport building.
“It can be very difficult for people, at times, to ask for support. Having that trust built up, knowing they can call us anytime or come to the office, means a lot.”
Anime as an icebreaker
At headspace, Adi works with a different cohort: young people who are often still working out school, study and careers. The foundation is the same, trust first, but getting started can look different.
“Sometimes you feel that connection straight away,” Adi says. “Other times you have to carve your way around it.”
His secret weapon is anime. “One of the common grounds I’ve found with young people is anime. I find that a lot of them watch it, and I watch a lot of anime. That gives us a start.”
Once someone is talking about something they love, the wall comes down a little. And the payoff, Adi says, is in the small moments.
“Those little wins matter so much. Something they might never have thought of, and you can just tell (the positive impact) a little win can have. Their confidence goes up, little by little. It’s great to watch,” he says.
His favourite part of the job is simpler still. “Sometimes it can be just a chat that they want. That connection is what drives me.”
Finding a place to belong
Adi and his wife first moved to Hamilton in 2020. They spent two years in Melbourne while he studied and she completed dentistry training, and they were sad to leave. “We always wanted to come back,” he says. They returned in June 2024.
Sport has been their way in. “It’s been one of my biggest connections with the community. We’ve made such good friends through sports, and now we just feel like we belong.”
For Adi, it comes back to the same thing as his work. Doing what you love, with people you connect with, in a place that feels like yours.
“I’m absolutely loving it,” he says. “Hamilton really does feel like home and I’ve never worked at an organisation like Brophy. It’s just fantastic.”
Adi is an Intake Worker at headspace Hamilton.