Richard MacDonald has given up industrial painting and dairy farming for a job as a mental health worker for Te Oranganui. Photo/ Bevan Conley.
Richard MacDonald says he’s the last person anyone would have expected to end up in a career in mental health.
“I left school when I was 17 and I’ve been a dairy farmer or an industrial painter for all that time.”
Five years ago, MacDonald lost his 17-year-old son, who had been experiencing mental health and addiction issues at the time, to suicide.
“As you can imagine it puts you through a bit.”
Now MacDonald says, “It feels like I should have been doing this work my whole life”.
After his son’s death, MacDonald and his wife began hosting a group of their son’s friends at their house for dinners on the weekends.
“It was a safe space for those kids to be themselves and talk about whatever, at times we’d have up to 24 kids every weekend.
“A lot of the kids that were coming around they were from rougher backgrounds who had not had the best starts in life, and we were seeing them grow and change.”
He said while watching his son’s friends play a game of volleyball on his back lawn, he turned to his wife and told her he was going to return to study.
“She looked at me and was shocked, that was probably the last idea of something she thought I’d go for, it was a complete turnaround from what I’ve been my whole life.”
The next day MacDonald signed up to complete a Level 3 Health and Wellbeing Certificate at the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand while still working as an industrial painter.
“I told my boss that I was going to be leaving work in a year and we sort of laughed about it, and I left pretty much one year later.
“I learnt a lot about myself and my own issues and my relationship with my son.”
Now in his role as Kaituruki, Waiora Hinengaro at Te Oranganui Trust, MacDonald supports adult males in the community who face a combination of mental health issues, addictions or homelessness.
“I’m currently working with 10 males.
“I love it, I guess with some of the things I’ve done in my life and the addiction issues I’ve been through I can relate quite well to them and I find it easy to develop a relationship with them.
“It’s helping somebody find themselves and discover a path to recovery.”
MacDonald said a client he’d been working with for two years had recently moved in with whānau and was sober for the first time.
“During conversations quite often you’ll see glimpses of the person when they’re well, now when I see him it’s just that well person it’s not a glimpse, he’s there.
“A lot of people just need a nudge in the right direction, a lot of people are lost and don’t know who they are anymore.”
MacDonald said returning to study in his mid-40s had at times been hard, but he had been supported by Te Oranganui to finish his Level 4 Apprenticeship in Mental Health and Addiction Support.
“I feel like in a sense, the worse experience I’ve ever had in losing my son has probably given me the most out of anything. I feel like I’m doing it for him.”
Eva de Jong is a reporter for the Whanganui Chronicle covering health stories and general news. She began as a reporter in 2023.
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