Andrew Comes Full Circle

ConneXu Behaviour Specialist

Newest recruit Andrew Karl believes everything in his life has led him full circle to his new role as ConneXu’s Behaviour Specialist. This is his second time working here, having been employed by the Te Awamutu Residential Trust more than 20 years ago. He is excited to be back and apply his unique blend of skills and experience at ConneXu.

When people aren’t quite sure what a Behaviour Specialist does, Andrew likens it to being like Sherlock Homes.

“Sherlock Holmes is given a scenario, and he has to investigate and eliminate the possibilities. Then what’s left is the truth. That’s the same process I follow as a behaviour specialist in a way,” he says.

“My job is to support community facilitators when working with disabled partners, to help them to understand possible reasons behind behaviours,” he says.

“I have a way with people and the ability to make conversation and get people to open up. There is an aspect of reading body language using data and frameworks. From there I start to put the pieces of the puzzle together.”

“I can talk to community facilitators, parents and partners and build a profile of what each behaviour looks like. I can also give guidance around something specific as well,” he says.

“In the future, the aim is also to deliver professional development to leaders and community facilitators around specific disabilities.”

Andrew says his varied career has led him full circle to this point.

“Most of my career I have worked under the umbrella of caring,” he says.

“I trained as a medic in the Army and worked in a variety of roles with IHC New Zealand, NZCCS (Crippled Children Society), Waikato Living Trust and the Te Awamutu Residential Trust (now ConneXu).”

“I trained as an English teacher and worked at Te Awamutu College for ten years before working as a Resource Teacher for Learning and Behaviour in Waikato schools.

“I worked with students, teachers and parents around learning and behaviour all over the Waikato, from Raglan and Kawhia right down to Taumarunui.”

He says all of these experiences have led him full circle back to ConneXu.

“For this job you need a medical understanding, plus working in education for so long has shown me the ‘how to’ in terms of collecting and storing data,” he says.

“I am combining my unique and varied experience and skills and applying it all in this role. This job feels full circle – everything that I’ve done has led to this.”

Always keen to learn, Andrew is currently studying for a psychology degree through the Open Polytechnic (he is already a qualified teacher).

He says one of the key things he is excited about in his job at ConneXu is the proactive aspect of his work.

“My goal is to create both proactive and reactive interventions. Too often in my previous job, we only worked reactively. If we work proactively, we can decrease the number of incidents”. he says.

“At the end of the day, it’s about supporting ConneXu’s drive to create better outcomes for partners – helping them and the people they work with to understand behaviour and manage behaviour.”

Outside of work, Andrew enjoys spending time with his wife and son Liam and his two stepchildren and three grandchildren. They recently finished a renovation on their Te Awamutu home and are enjoying living in their remodelled home without any more work to do on it!

Want to work with Andrew?

Andrew takes referrals via ConneXu’s Partnership and Enablement Leaders. He can provide advice and guidance for specific situations or behaviours. He is based at the Te Awamutu Office in the Waikato 3 days a week, and also works out of the Tauranga Office 2 days a week, and in Taupo by request. Contact Andrew by email - andrew@connexu.nz