Aaron has always been the one friends turn to, the person people find easy to talk to. These days he brings that same quality, along with a degree in psychology and years spent guiding people through remote Australia, to his work as a nature-based support worker.

Goal & Mission

Caring is something of a family trade for Aaron. His mum was an aged care nurse, and both his grandmother and his cousin were psychiatric nurses. Put that together with his study of psychology and the personal work he’s done along the way, and this role is where it all comes together.

At the heart of it is a simple aim: to empower the people he works with to enrich their lives.

Experience & Specialisation

Aaron holds a Bachelor of Psychology and Forensic Science and is completing a Graduate Certificate in Counselling, which deepens the care and understanding he brings to every person he works with.

Guiding in remote Australia taught him what it means to be responsible for people: keeping groups safe and getting them from place to place, often a long way from help. It also showed him first-hand how deeply the natural world touches people.

Aaron is genuinely interested in people. He believes everyone has a unique and interesting story, and that interest is what lets him work so easily with such a broad range of people.

Approach

Being neurodivergent himself, Aaron knows from the inside what it’s like to think and feel a little differently, and that understanding is a big part of how he connects. He meets people where they are.

He works shoulder to shoulder and lets curiosity set the course. A serious conversation on a bushwalk might pause while they look up a plant, wander off on a tangent, then find its way back again. Aaron calls these side quests, and there’s always room for both depth and a good laugh along the way.

Values and Qualities

Acceptance and empathy sit at the core of how Aaron works. Whoever someone is, he meets them with openness and warmth, and wants to know what makes their heart sing.

Beliefs

Time in nature changes people. Aaron has seen it in the people he has guided, and it’s why he does this work.

Play is powerful. For Aaron, lightness is part of the work.

Interests

Aaron is happiest outdoors, whether he’s climbing, bushwalking, swimming, snorkelling or throwing in a line. He loves photography, music and drawing, is exploring painting, and practises meditation and flow arts, the art of prop spinning and juggling.

Qualification & Training

• Bachelor of Psychology and Forensic Science — Swinburne University of Technology
• Graduate Certificate in Counselling (in progress) — University of Canberra
• First Aid Certificate

With Aaron on the Back to Nature Ecotherapy team, participants have someone alongside them with an understanding of psychology and a genuine sense of fun, who’ll back them as they build a richer life on their own terms.