[ Return ]

Kate Markham: busy mother and innovative youth worker

June 5th, 2010
By David Armstrong

Kate Markham got into youth work largely by accident, but this busy mother of three has taken to the task of helping at-risk youths with the vigour and empathy of a fully trained professional.

What started out as helping out at an Early Childhood Education centre to pay the bills in her late teens has progressed through training as a preschool teacher to being a primary school teacher aide and now one of two youth workers for Get Safe Motueka.

Along the way Kate has also become involved in a range of community activities that have, invariably, been linked to the interests and activities of her growing children.

She says her experiences during a somewhat itinerant childhood - she attended 13 schools - have taught her a lot about the difficulties that many people face in their lives. "That's why I can easily relate to people struggling with their families," she says.

Now 31 years of age, Kate Markham was born in Levin but because her father worked for the Army they moved about quite a bit. At age four, they moved to Dunedin where her parents proceeded to buy old houses and do up and sell them regularly over a 22 year period, always in different suburbs, so she was constantly changing schools. This meant that maintaining friendships was always a near impossibility so she grew up somewhat isolated. "As a result, I've kind of decided that my kids are staying in one place and that's it for them," she laughs.

She hated school, mainly because she had no time to make any friends but also because she struggled academically. She left at 16 and worked in a dairy for $4.10 an hour, 60 hours a week.

Since she was 11 she had done some babysitting, and this then led to a proper job nannying for a working Canadian couple in Dunedin. This led her into early childhood education working as an unqualified reliever, but soon started training.

By this stage she had married and had her first two children, Jordan and Charlie. Sadly, when Jordan was 2 his dad died from a medical condition and Kate had to focus back on looking after her own growing family so her training was put on hold. After about 6 months she started getting work again, this time in home-based child care where her charges were brought to her own home.

A move to Auckland for a change "sounded like a very good idea at the time, but it turned out to be a really bad idea," she says. "It was big, cold, wet and unfriendly." She did some work there in a kindergarten, and stuck it out for 18 months "out of pure stubbornness".

"Everyone had told me not to go, that I'd hate it, so I had to stay there. But after 18 months I just had to move on." So it was on to Masterton to be with her dad. There she returned to pre-school teaching. And there, too, she met Darren, a Wellington-based IT specialist. They married in 2005.

When their new baby Abbey was six months old, Darren was offered a job at Nelson Hospital. Kate's first husband was from Upper Moutere so there were grandparents around for the children, and the move would bring them closer to family.

Darren is now well known in Motueka for his work with the volunteer fire brigade, promoting fire safety messages in the community and schools with programmes such as Firewise.

There were no jobs in preschools in Motueka at the time, so Kate worked as a teacher aide at St Peter Chanel School for a year. Then the job at Get Safe Motueka came up. At the time its scope covered kids from 6 to 16 years, "so it was working within the age group that I liked", but that soon changed to 14 - 16 years. So, bingo! Kate Markham, once a preschool teacher, became a specialist worker with teenagers.

She says Get Safe had a very low profile at the time, so with the help of new management they decided to "get a positive youth image out there". With her fellow worker Paul Johnson, they provide youth services and counselling for victims of family violence. Mostly their clients are young men who are referred from courts to do programmes.

Most of their youth work is not about domestic violence but youth offenders and at-risk youth, with referrals from Youth Aid and the high school.

"It's challenging work because by the age of 14 .... many of the antisocial behaviours of youth are already ingrained," she says. "But one thing I would challenge is everyone's perception of them - that whole 'youth of today' stuff. I also work with HYPE, who do the night patrols and street ambassador work, and one thing I get out of that that I can go back to the community with is that youth aren't that bad.

"We've found that comparing Nelson, Richmond and Motueka, the Mot kids are the most engaging. They'll stand there and have a 10-minute conversation with you. We can actually spend time with them and then encourage them to find their way home in good time."

It only needs some gentle guidance and suggestions to keep them from getting into drinking or vandalism, and Kate is quite relaxed about spending the time with them, in Thorps Bush or wherever, doing that. She's frustrated when some adults take too strong a line and challenge them. "I know these kids. If you have the right approach, it works."

Get Safe runs various projects that aim to get youth to see the consequences of their actions, and to identify safe and unsafe environments.

Kate is now studying for the one-year Diploma of Youth Work, based in Nelson. But that doesn't take all her spare time: she is involved in several community groups that mainly involve her children.

Until a few weeks ago she was chairperson of the Parklands School Board of Trustees. She was very disappointed when she missed the cut in the recent elections. But she still helps out with Motueka SPCA by occasionally fostering cats and kittens before they are rehoused. "Clearly not very well, because we tend not to return them, do we," she laughingly suggests to the cat curled up in her lap.

She is also a cub leader, does parent coaching at Abbey's gym class, and will soon start helping out with Darnz hip-hip group. "It kinda gets to the point where, if my kids are in it, then if I'm hanging around then I might as well help," she adds. "I just don't say no." But her kids come first.

Her work with youth also extends into her family life at times, such as when her children (now aged 11, 9 and 4) go on trips with youth. "They're still young enough that it's cool doing stuff with mum."

 
[ Return ]