Nate’s Aussie Odyssey: Skateboards, snakes and a career in youth work

 

Nate arrived in Australia with $600, a skateboard and four changes of clothes.

Before Brophy, before Warrnambool, he’d spent a decade as an outdoor instructor in Canada: skiing, canoeing, rock climbing, mostly with school groups, plus summers out tripping and winters on the slopes.

But when he landed in Melbourne, Nate went in a different direction. Partly, at least, because of snakes.

“I was actually so afraid of snakes when I first came here,” Nate laughed. “I didn’t want to be the one responsible for young people in their habitat.”

Instead, he found work in a kitchen – chasing a meal, a shift, and some social connection. It wasn’t until he moved to Warrnambool with his partner that the path back to working with young people opened up. A friend mentioned a kinship care role, doing respite work, and Nate decided to look into it.

He was placed with a young person in Portland, and something clicked. “We went in, had a chat, and just hit it off,” he recalls.

“No one had really hit it off with that young person and we really did.” That connection became the start of his career in community services: a diploma, and a straight jump into the sector.

It wasn’t always smooth. “It’s not always success stories,” Nate says.

“Sometimes it’s a chemistry thing, and you’ve got to hand it over to someone else – or try a different angle yourself (to connect with a young person).”

That adaptability traces straight back to his outdoor instructing days – where communication was always the foundation, whether he was coaching someone through a rock climb or a rainy canoe trip.

Foyer the perfect fit

At the Foyer, that foundation has taken on new depth. Nate points to the model itself: 16 young people living on site, an eight-week trial before intake, and a team of seven or eight staff with genuinely different styles.

“It’s cool to see young people start to cherry-pick,” he says, gravitating toward the Youth Development Coach whose approach motivates them best.

He’s also drawn to the Advantaged Thinking that underpins the coaching model, which means asking questions rather than handing out answers so young people take ownership of their progress.

What keeps him there, three years on? The variety, the problem-solving, and watching people grow. It’s rewarding for Nate too, seeing young people transform over time. Not because they’ve become different people, but because they’ve started to believe in themselves.

For anyone considering a career in this space, Nate‘s pitch is simple: no two days are the same, the training and upskilling never stops, and you get to be part of someone else’s story sometimes without ever fully seeing how it ends.

“Together, we get to think about their future,” he says. “You get to dream in this job. That’s pretty amazing.”

Work-life balance

That idea of creating your own path applies to Nate‘s life outside Brophy too.

A keen artist, Nate also works in tattooing, and his 0.8 role at the Foyer gives him the space to continue pursuing his creative work alongside community services.

“Having the 0.8 and being able to do art and be paid for it kind of gets me up to full-time,” he said.

The arrangement has become even more valuable since Nate became a dad, giving him the flexibility to spend more time with his son while still making space for work, art and family life.

It also means his creative interests occasionally cross over into the Foyer, particularly when connecting with young people who share an interest in art, drawing or tattooing.

Although Nate is quick to point out that tattooing might not be quite as glamorous as it looks.

“A lot of young people like art and, unfortunately, they all think tattooing is cool,” he laughed.

“But it’s a slog. It’s such a slog.”

For Nate, the combination works: meaningful work with young people, room to pursue his art and tattooing, and enough flexibility to be present with his family.

“I feel pretty fortunate,” he said.

And as for the snakes?

He has now seen 67 of them. He started counting after stepping on his third.

*Nate is a Youth Development Coach at Foyer Warrnambool