Chippy’s light bulb moment set to brighten young lives

In 2018, Christian ‘Chippy’ Petersen had what he called ‘a light bulb moment’ while he was watching a documentary about the BackTrack Youth Works Program established in Armidale.

The program’s founder Bernie Shakeshaft was named the 2020 Australian Local Hero for his outstanding role with the community-led organisation and for turning around the lives of some of the country’s most vulnerable kids.

After seeing the plight of disadvantaged youth in his community, Bernie decided to take action. Starting in 2006 with a shed and an idea, Bernie used the skills he developed growing up and as a jackaroo in the Northern Territory learning from the Aboriginal trackers to develop the award-winning program that uses animal-assisted learning, agricultural skills and a residential facility.

Bernie and his amazing team have helped more than 1000 children reconnect with their education, training, families, and community, giving them a sense of belonging.

“You don’t hear many people talk about their’ calling’ anymore, not seriously, anyway,” said Chippy.

“But for me, after watching that documentary, I knew that if I ever had the chance to be involved in something like that, I’d do what I could to make it happen.

“Seeing the work Bernie Shakeshaft is doing for the youth in his community, I knew I had found my dream job.”

Six years later, Chippy’s dream is about to become a reality with RiverBank Youth Works – Wee Waa is set to start a program in Term 3 as the first intake forms are received.

In order to deliver a sustainable program with lasting and positive outcomes, Chippy said numbers will be limited but the RiverBank Youth Works team will be engaging with community groups, schools and representatives to determine the participants.

Many readers would be familiar with Chippy’s good work in the community and various skills – from building and repairing things to playing an instrument, – Chippy’s approachable, down-to-earth, and fuss-free reputation makes him a popular mentor for young people.

Chippy’s experience in youth work began when he was a youth. In his senior high school years, Chippy helped run games and activities at his local youth group in Barraba, working and learning his way through several different paid and volunteer roles.

Next, he stepped up to take on various roles in schools, including running a successful breakfast club that made a big difference to the emotional and physical lives of young people while also working as a school chaplain. However, as the years passed, for Chippy, the 2018 ‘light bulb moment’ was still flickering away inside.

“I couldn’t wait for the opportunity to find me, I had to make it happen,” he said.

“I was working in town at one of the schools as Chaplain.

“It’s an interesting role and changes school to school, person to person.

“At this stage, I was spending a lot of my time working with a young bloke who really struggled with the whole concept of school.

Christian “Chippy” Petersen, founder and program manager of RiverBank Youth Works – Wee Waa.

“He was in Year 3, and he wouldn’t have been able to articulate it, but he’d worked out that our education system wasn’t built to cater for him.”

Leaving a lasting impression, the ‘young bloke’ strengthened Chippy’s drive to create a versatile program that caters for individual needs, teaches basic life skills and provides a welcoming environment to stop youth slipping through the cracks.

“It was then that I first chatted with people outside of my family about setting something up to cater for these kids,” explained Chippy.

“I’d talked with my wife Heather about it a few times, but mostly in that dreaming if-I-won-the-lotto kind of way, 2020 was the first time I spoke about it as something I could do.”

Around this time, Chippy began to implement a few ideas at the schools where he worked. He said the beginnings of an occasional workshop at Wee Waa Public School were unfortunately put on hold as the high school had to start sharing the school site with them.

“That put the program plans off for a little while. Then in late 2022, the idea went public,” he said.

“I’d been chatting a bit with a colleague about getting something up and running in town. “They’d been struggling with family members heading down those unhelpful paths and having no success in trying to get them back”, said Chippy.

“I was invited to share my idea at a meeting organised by our local AECG (Aboriginal Education Consultative Group).

“I remember getting to the AECG meeting late, I’d got my times mixed up, and just caught the end of it.

“Next thing I knew, I was trying to find the words to talk about what I wanted to do.

“I think it ended up ‘I want to start something like BackTrack in Wee Waa’ or something along those lines.”

RiverBank has no affiliation with BackTrack, but early on, that was the easiest way for people to get a grasp of what Chippy was trying to do.

“It gave people a reference point,” Chippy said.

“Bernie has been a very recognisable figure since his local hero award in 2020, and people have some understanding of his work thanks to the documentary and various other stories that get media coverage.”

“Now I’ve gotten a little better at describing it.

“We want to get alongside the young people in our town that are disengaged with school and making choices with lasting negative consequences, such as incarceration, long term physical and mental injury, or death.

“We want to provide them with a safe and welcoming place to belong, teach them some employable skills and help them to develop the important life skills they’ll need to succeed”, explained Chippy.

“How that looks for each young person will vary, but the basics are the same.”

After first sharing the idea publicly, Chippy said it took almost 12 months to put together a board to get the organisation off the ground.

“Plenty of people were keen for it to happen, but not many had the time or ability to really lend their support,” he said.

“My wife, Heather, was on board from the start. I made the decision early on, not to be a part of the organisational side of things.

“I wanted to be doing, not organising”, said Chippy.

Wee Waa Rotaract president and active community member Ethan Towns recently attended a meeting about the RiverBank Youth Works. Ethan is pictured holding the Rotaract charter at the Wee Waa Community Arts and Cultural Centre, where the group is now based.

“Montana Carrett was pretty quick to say ‘yes’, Tegan Copelin as well.

“I personally approached all of our prospective board, but particularly wanted to get Darcy Lang to help me out.

“They were the first four that we registered the company with, in August 2023. Luke Carrett we finally convinced earlier this year.

“They all bring their particular strengths to the organisation, and I genuinely couldn’t have gotten to where I am without them.”

With the help of his uncle, Krist Grasnick, who started FlatTrack in Moree, Chippy said the RiverBank board started the not-for-profit company’s journey through ‘a paperwork forest’. After finally registering the company, requiring special permission to use ‘Bank’ in its name, they decided to seek Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) accreditation.

“We’d registered the company after the third try and knew the next steps would be significant,” he said.

“Seeking registration as a charity was a no brainer, chasing DGR status seemed to be the next step after that.

“And it took ages. We were stuck in a sort of limbo for months waiting to get that approval. “We didn’t want to be asking for donations, knowing that we might be able to offer tax invoices later on, and a lot of grants require the DGR status.

“So, we had very little funding and an increasing list of future bills, including wages.”

At the end of 2023, Chippy made the decision to finish up working in the local schools.

“I knew that at some stage this year I’d be starting the boots on the ground stuff with RiverBank and I didn’t want to leave a school part way through the year,” said Chippy.

“It would also give me more time to wade through a growing pile of paperwork and grant applications.

“It’s been difficult, and more than a little tedious, but I’m glad I made that choice.

“We’d probably still be treading water if I hadn’t been able to commit a full working week to RiverBank.

“It’s meant that I could be completing forms and policies, and attending meetings when I would otherwise have been needed at work.

“Now I’ve just got to get to a point where the wages match the workload.”

Chippy has praised the community for getting behind the youth initiative and strongly believes RiverBank’s success will be partly determined by the level of local support.

“With the help of some very generous individuals and organisations in town, including the Lions Club and RSL, RiverBank has ticked the final few boxes to be able to get started in the coming weeks,” he said.

And a generosity of a different kind has given RiverBank a home to start in.

“Tegan and I went to see Lisa at the “Yellow Door” to ask about a potential shed to use for the program.,” said Chippy.

“After chatting with her for a while, she suggested the Yellow Door as a possible starting space.

“After a couple of meetings, we had the approval of the Wee Waa Community Arts and Cultural Centre board, and Lisa had a growing list of projects we could help them with.

“That was a really surprising and exciting step, it’s one thing to be teaching our young people employable skills, but if they can be seen to be contributing to our community in some way, that’s even better.

“The two organisations helping each other out to achieve both common and diverse goals is a glimpse of what this community is capable of.”

With the first intake forms being filled in and plans to start the program early in term 3, Chippy’s excitement is evident.

Where most people tend to shy away from working with young people, he steers into it. “Youth work isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but it genuinely energises me,” Chippy said as he flashed his signature smile, joy beaming across his face.

“If it weren’t for the need to keep my own family housed and fed, I’d do it for free.

“I guess that’s added to the frustration of taking so long to get everything set up, I could do the job tomorrow but there aren’t many organisations that accept good deeds as payment,” he laughed.

“And we needed to set it up, so it didn’t rely on any one person to keep it going, it’s too important a job to let ego take control.

“That’s why we’ve gone about it the way we have, it’s going to take the community to make a difference in the lives of these, and future young people.

“The old adage that it takes a village to raise a child still rings true.”

As RiverBank takes its first few steps in the role it was set up for, Chippy is bursting with enthusiasm to get started and there’s an excitement rippling through those who’ve had a role in its development.

“The board, generous donors and the faithful praying types from local churches as well as the organisations supporting and walking alongside them; the local schools and AECG, Lands Council, Police, RSL, Lions, Rotaract and more, are all eagerly anticipating the coming change, both for the young people whose lives are going to be positively impacted and for the community who will also reap the benefits of upwardly enabled youth contributing to the upkeep and betterment of the local community.”