It was not until his early 20s that he grew more comfortable with his dual whakapapa.
“I suppose my journey towards social work was heavily informed by my own identity crisis, my journey through being brought up well — apart from hidings — and getting kicked out of home for smoking.”
Being a young man who went through hard times has made Gareth a man with immense love for youth.
“I tell them, ‘look, I don't fully get what you're going through but I've been in similar situations'.”
Before supporting Gisborne's youth he had brushes with the law which briefly took him to prison. But it was a brush that landed him a job as a youth worker.
“That sparked my taste for psychology, social work and counselling.”
At 20 years of age, he entered university hoping to pursue a career in psychology.
However, that did not last long once he got a job as a telemarketer and flourished.
“I smashed it and became a telemarketing manager, travelling round New Zealand opening up businesses and making lots of moola.”
After working a few years he was drawn back to study and started a diploma in social work at Tairawhiti Polytechnic.
He moved to Hamilton to study psychology but was convinced to move into counselling by Dr Paul Flanagan who teaches post-graduate counsellor programmes at Waikato University.
Dr Flanagan asked him, “Do you want to be a psychologist or do you want to help people?”
He duly signed up for a master of counselling.
Through his course he was connected with Tauawhi Men's Centre in Gisborne for placement and the relationship with the organisation started.
But then his mother got sick.
“I ended up living with her at Waikato Hospital and I started to fall behind a bit, because they were doing trips away and I had to stay.”
Gareth was offered a compassionate exemption to drop out and he took it.
He came to Gisborne and started a short-term teaching gig at Eastern Institute of Technology.
“The second week I was there, Dad died.”
Despite the twisted paths and struggles along the way, it seems like Gareth was born to help others.
“I love people and I love helping,” he says.
He had a stint in Auckland as a social worker at Manurewa High School while living with his mother for a spell, but they chose to move back to Gisborne because of the high cost of living.
“I applied for so many jobs when I came back — I think Dick Smith was around back then.”
Then two jobs came up, one at Tauawhi, the other with a mobile truck company that sold household products at highly-inflated prices, often trapping people in debt.
He went for a ride along with them and they offered him a job. They said they would fly him to Auckland, put him up and give him his own truck. Even though he needed the work he turned down the job.
“I just couldn't do it — they're like sharks you know.”
The afternoon he turned down the job, Tim Marshall from Tauawhi called and offered him a job. He started the next Tuesday.
“And I've been there five and a half years since then.”
After years in social work, he experienced burnout.
“You go through so many versions of burnout that you need to have a bit of time to step back,” says Gareth.
“Constantly caring takes a toll — they say you need to switch off when you go home, all these things to take care of yourself, which is all great in theory . . .
“But when you work with youth, their problems don't happen from 9am to 5pm . . . They happen from 9pm to 5am.
“You get crisis calls at night and family troubles, and all the different traumas and abuses they go through and the systems that fail them.”
Gareth says you often cannot tell you are burnt out till it happens.
“Stress is hard to identify in yourself. We're taught to have good self-care by being reflective.
“In my early years as a social worker it was unidentifiable — you didn't know it was happening.
“Then you get to the point of, ‘I don't want to go work,' ‘I don't care what anyone has to say,' or ‘everything sounds the same, I've heard it all before'.
“As soon as you start having those sorts of thoughts, you've burnt out long before that thought happened.”
Gareth says when you lose empathy, you lose your ability to do the work, and the only way to get past it is to take time off.
“And the sad thing is you don't get burnout leave — you just get annual leave like every other job.
“Then instead of going on holiday, you spend your time wrapped up in a blanket in your bed just thinking about your life, thinking, ‘Am I still built for this?' ”
Gareth says if you do experience burnout it is important to surround yourself with people who love you, do the things that you enjoy and take it seriously, because burnout can easily build into depression and anxiety.
He says social work is not a career for everyone but it can be one of the most rewarding paths.
“It's about empathy. If you're empathetic to human plight and all the problems that we cause ourselves, then it's right for you.
“But if you haven't dealt with your own stuff first, it's probably not.”
Anyone thinking about getting into the social work business needs to have a big heart, says Gareth.
My dream is to be a professor of some kind, someone teaching the next generation of counsellors and social workers, he says.
After growing into himself and years in the field helping others, Gareth is ready for the next level.
