I'm Sam — a men's facilitator and program designer with over two decades of experience supporting men and boys through some of the hardest chapters of their lives.
My work has taken me from the front lines of violent prisons and youth justice systems, through tactical riot response and hostage negotiation, into working with men seeking change, recovery, reconnection, and a clearer sense of who they are.
What I bring is a meeting point of three things:
Evidence-informed practice
Ancient human wisdom about how men live, connect, and change
Hard-earned lived experience — including my own recovery from trauma
BEFORE I HAD WORDS FOR ANY OF IT
Long before I began my journey to support other men and boys, I'd already experienced severe domestic violence in my own early childhood. That experience shaped my nervous system, my understanding of safety, and my relationship with strength — long before I had words to describe it. Without me realising it at the time, it also set me on the path for what I'd end up spending my adult life doing.
TWO DECADES IN THE HARDEST ENVIRONMENTS
For more than twenty years, I worked in environments where the stakes were high, very real and the consequences immediate. I saw for myself first-hand what happens when men reach breaking point without ever having been taught how to notice it approaching or what to do about it. I sat across from men in the worst moments of their lives— many of whom weren't fundamentally different from myself or the men I now work with in mentoring rooms and around fires. They'd just been carrying disconnection for longer, with feweroff-ramps and less skills and resources to navigate the things they were dealing with.
That work taught me a lot about the internal drivers of behaviour and sparked a burning curiosity to know more.
It also, eventually, taught me the limits of anyone's capacity to keep absorbing other people's crises without paying a price.
MY OWN COLLAPSE
Eventually my own defences were overwhelmed.
I was medically retired with PTSD — and began repeating many of the same patterns I'd spent years trying to help others learn to manage: hypervigilance, anger, numbness, and disconnection.
What followed wasn't a neat recovery story. It was a slow, confronting process of learning to listen to my body, sit with discomfort, and allow support — something I'd spent most of my life avoiding.
Therapy definitely helped. Education helped. But what changed things the most were moments of real connection — safe relationships, honest conversations, and spaces where I didn't have to perform. Perform being strong, having it together or simply being "okay".
That experience reshaped how I understand healing. I stopped seeing it as fixing something broken, and began understanding it as reconnecting with what had been lost.
Connection wasn't a soft extra. It was the antidote.
HOW THIS SHAPED MY WORK
As I recovered, something else became clear. I didn't want these experiences — personal or professional — to end with me. I felt a responsibility to turn hard-earned understanding into work that could help men earlier in their journey, before disconnection hardened into crisis.
In Buddhist teaching, this impulse has a name: bodhichitta — the "awakened heart" that arises due to our own suffering but that then becomes the foundation of our care for others. Alternatively reffered to as the wounded healer in other traditions. Though I didn't come to that framing until much later, looking back, it names something I felt strongly at the time.
Drawing on decades of experience and study, my own recovery, and years of program development, I began designing practical, trauma-informed systems that support men to make sense of what's happening inside them, notice patterns that no longer serve them, and rebuild connection where it's been lost.
This work is practical, grounded, and trauma-aware. Rather than trying to eliminate difficult thoughts or feelings, it supports men to relate to them differently — so they have more choice in how they respond, act in line with their values, and build lives that feel meaningful and steady. Alongside this, the work draws on ancient human practices — storytelling, shared reflection, and community. Not just as concepts, but as actual practical experiences that help restore responsibility, belonging, and a sense that none of us are meant to do this alone.
BEYOND MEN — WORKING WITH BOYS, PARENTS, AND SCHOOLS
Over time, the work with men naturally expanded.
Much of my early experience was working with young men and boys.
It was becoming clear that a lot of what I'd learned about disconnection, identity, and behaviour was showing up earlier — in boys navigating a changing cultural landscape without a clear map or guidance.
And in parents and schools trying to respond without always having the right tools.
Working with boys, educators, and parents became a natural extension of the same core principle: supporting connection, responsibility, and a healthier understanding and expression of strength and masculinity, before harmful patterns take hold.
My own experience of fatherhood — both young and later in life — has deepened my understanding of how identity, responsibility, and connection grow and evolve across the different seasons of a man's life.
HOW I WORK TODAY
Today, I work with men and boys across Australia and beyond — through one-to-one mentoring, men's circles, retreats in nature, and school communities.
Whether it's around a fire, in a room of quiet honesty, or supporting parents and educators to hold the conversations they've never quite known how to have — the work is always the same: Helping people reconnect. With themselves. With others. With the life they're here to live.
I don't believe men and boys are broken. I believe they're disconnected. And reconnection is where real strength begins.
TRAINING AND BACKGROUND
For those who like to know the specifics — the ground beneath this work has been laid over more than two decades of study, practice, and program development.
Academic and psychological training:
BA Criminology
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Good Lives Model
Motivational Interviewing
Brief Solution-Focused Therapy
Professional Certificate in Effective Practice in Youth Justice
Professional Certificate in Understanding Childhood Trauma
Facilitation, crisis, and instructor training:
Mental Health First Aid — Licensed Instructor
Therapeutic Crisis Intervention for Families — Train the Trainer
Juvenile Enhanced Thinking Skills — a psychologically accredited behaviour change program
Restorative Approaches Trainer
Hostage and Crisis Negotiation
Mediation
Debrief Skills Training
Use of Force up to Armed Cell Extraction and Tornado (Riot Response)
Program development and frontline projects:
Part of the setup of the Daedalus Project at HMP Feltham (Ipsos evaluation available)
Contributor to the development of the Divert Project in South Wales, working with young people at risk of criminal exploitation by organised crime
Founder and facilitator of Opening Doors for a Brighter Future a CBT-based skills program for young people at risk of permanent exclusion
Part of Gwent Missing Children and Sexual or Crimanl Exploation Team
Developer of the Cavemen framework and Unlocked: Your Real Strength program for boys
OUTSIDE THE WORK
Away from this work, I find grounding in making things by hand from reclaimed materials. A quiet reminder that what's been worn down, fractured, or discarded can still be shaped into something strong, useful, whole — and beautiful again
If any of this resonates, and you'd like to talk about how this work might fit for you, your team, or your school community — get in touch
If you're in a really dark place — right now, tonight, or in the next few days — this work isn't what you need in right this moment.
What you need is immediate support, from people trained for exactly that.
Please reach out to one of these.
All are free, confidential, and available 24/7.
Lifeline — 13 11 14 Crisis support and suicide prevention. Call anytime, day or night. lifeline.org.au
Beyond Blue — 1300 22 4636 Support for anxiety, depression, and general mental health. beyondblue.org.au
MensLine Australia — 1300 78 99 78 Support specifically for men dealing with relationship, family, or emotional concerns. mensline.org.au
13YARN — 13 92 76 A crisis support line by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. 13yarn.org.au
Suicide Call Back Service — 1300 659 467 Free professional counselling for anyone affected by suicide. suicidecallbackservice.org.au
In an emergency, call 000.
You don't have to be certain it's "bad enough" to call. If you're wondering whether you should — that's enough of a reason to..