You’re originally from West Auckland. What brought you to the Coromandel and why did you choose to stay?
I was born and bred in West Auckland and genuinely thought I’d die there!
My wife Jovana and I had started a charitable trust supporting young people and were looking for somewhere to take them on adventures. Around that time, my in-laws invited us to help establish a retreat centre at Te Mata Lodge on the Thames Coast.
I saw it as an opportunity to support West Auckland youth. Instead, it became the beginning of our own journey into the Thames community. We fell in love with the people and the place. Now we’re raising our family here, and it’s home through and through.
Had you had much to do with the area before?
Very little personally around Thames, although my family had holidayed at Ōtautū Bay, near Colville, for a few years when I was younger.
But here’s the interesting part. After moving to Thames, I discovered through my granddad that our family had originally settled here during the early goldfields days. They ran a local jewellery and watchmaking business called Chronometer House, and my great-great-great-grandfather was a founding member of the Baptist Church.
So, in a funny sort of way, moving here wasn’t just about finding a new home. It was about coming home to somewhere my family had been connected to generations before me.
You’ve been doing ‘youth work’ since before you had children/while your children were really young. How has your perspective changed as your own children have grown older?
Interestingly, I don’t think becoming a parent changed my approach to youth work as much as it changed the way I connect with other parents.
It’s given me a much greater appreciation for both how beautiful and how challenging parenting can be, and certainly a lot more grace for parents navigating that journey.
If I’m honest, I think my youth work has probably shaped how I’ve grown to raise my own children more than my children have shaped how I do youth work.
It has also deepened my sense of urgency. Every young person we work with is someone of immense value, deserving of the same intense love I have for my own kids.
What drives you to be so passionate about helping our young people?
We talk a lot about living in the present, but often underestimate how much our past and our future shape the way we live today.
My teenage years were turbulent. I experienced significant family trauma and the pain of losing people around me.
I didn’t navigate those years particularly well, but a school guidance counsellor, Sue Evans, played a pivotal role in helping me find my feet.
Later, when a friend’s father and another young friend took their own lives, I remember thinking, “This is not the way it should be.”
That lit a fire in me to do something about it.
I wanted to help young people find hope and vision for their futures.
Because ultimately, they are our future, and the way we walk alongside and support them today will be reflected in the communities we live in tomorrow.
What do some of us ‘adults’ miss about today’s youth?
Honestly, I think one of the greatest things missing in many families today is time.
Parents are busy trying to achieve things, or sometimes just trying to survive. And by the time they get some downtime, they’re exhausted.
I have conversations with young people who talk about their parents escaping into devices, much like we often criticise young people for doing.
So I sometimes wonder whether the question isn’t so much what we’re missing about today’s youth, but what today’s youth are missing from us.
I’ve had young people say things like, “Nah, my parents don’t care about me. They’re too busy.”
Now, I know that’s often not true. Those parents love their kids immensely. But the heartbreaking thing is that it’s not what their children are experiencing.
Sometimes the greatest gift we can offer isn’t advice or another opportunity. It’s our time and attention.
How did Thrive Trust get its start?
It really began with a remarkable lady named Lynne Chaffey, who has since passed away.
I had all these dreams and ideas written down about supporting young people, and I was sharing them while working as a high-rise abseiler in Auckland City.
Lynne, who attended my church, heard the vision and simply said, “Hey, why don’t we get it started then?”
She had experience in charitable trust governance, and through her sister, connections with a local school.
I might have been the person carrying the vision, but I needed someone like Lynne who could help turn it into something real.
We launched with a pilot programme called Res-Kids, which we still run today, although it’s grown and adapted considerably.
Our initial goal was to build confidence and resilience. But after that first term, we started hearing stories of young people improving in maths, stepping into leadership at school and no longer fighting at home.
We realised we’d stumbled onto something much bigger than our original goals.
The name and structure have changed over the years, but the heart of the work has always stayed the same: walking alongside young people and helping them discover the confidence, resilience and hope to thrive.
What does ‘success’ look like for Thrive Trust?
For me, success has to start with the individual.
It’s one young person discovering a sense of vision, hope and connection, and stepping into life with the confidence to thrive.
Everything else we do, whether it’s adventure-based programmes, mentoring, strengthening families or running professional development workshops with schools across the Upper North Island, all comes back to that same heart.
Helping our young people thrive.
Tell me about The Unschooled Life.
The Unschooled Life is a book I wrote after seeing how many young people were struggling with the transition from education into adult life.
I wanted to create something that could be a bit of a field guide for navigating change, finding purpose and recognising that our past doesn’t have to define our future. I also hoped it might generate some funding to support our youth work.
What’s been fascinating is discovering just how broad the audience has become.
Yes, it has resonated with young adults finding their feet. But I’ve also heard from parents navigating the transition of children leaving home, and retirees figuring out what life looks like beyond their working years.
It turns out that learning to navigate change, rediscover purpose and build a life with vision isn’t something we only need to do when we’re young.
It’s something we keep coming back to throughout our lives.
Supported by Rob Holding
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