Samuel

Samuel comes from a very supportive family unit. He was very shy when we first met him. However, Samuel was nonetheless a very active young man in his community.

He loves playing Australian rules football and cricket. Samuel is part of the Joondalup Kinross Cricket club. He loves going to games to support his team and watching horror films. He was also working at Activ Property Care. While he enjoyed it, ultimately, Samuel’s long-term goal was to gain paid work in mainstream employment.

With the support of his Inclusion WA Mentors, Samuel began exploring new employment opportunities through Employment Discovery. Both he and his Mentors started investigating multiple pathways—from studying to work experience—he could take to achieve his goals. No matter what ideas were presented, Samuel always had the same enthusiasm to try something new and give it his best shot.

From day one, Samuel expressed an interest in gardening because he loves being outdoors. He decided to pursue work experience with a landscape gardener to get a better feel for the industry. With the support of Inclusion WA Mentors, he found a local landscaper who runs his own business. He decided that he wanted to do an informational interview with him. Samuel’s passion for gardening was obvious during the interview and the business owner offered Samuel a work experience placement. Samuel learnt so much during his work experience and it solidified his career pathway into landscaping.

During his discovery journey, Samuel also started to do some volunteer work with an organisation that assists elderly people to maintain their gardens called Chorus. He enjoyed working with the team and a lot of people complimented Samuel’s work ethic and his friendly and supportive demeanour.

After nearly a year of volunteering and work experience, Samuel was offered a paid opportunity to maintain a local family’s front and back yard on a weekly basis. Through this first step, Samuel realised that he wanted to set up his own gardening micro-business. This is now the next goal that he is working on with his Mentors. On the way home from his first shift doing the yard work for the family, Samuel told his Mentor that “this is the first client of 1,000”.