“His name was Bob, to his 21 grandchildren he didn’t want to be known as ‘Pa’ or ‘Pop’, he just wanted to be called Bob.”
Bob was the grandfather of Chris Varney.
Chris is a known child’s rights activist, law graduate, Australian UN Youth Representative, employee of the Foundation for Young Australians and a sufferer of aspergers.
“I was an extremely anxious kid, who at the age of five was diagnosed with aspergers, the label that commonly describes mild autism” Mr Varney said.
Autism spectrum disorder enhances a child’s anxieties, obsessive tendencies and disruptive habits and it keeps them “…a little out of sync with the everyday kid” Mr Varney said.
“It means that some things that might come typical to the everyday child, the common development milestones for kids on the spectrum are just a little bit delayed” Mr Varney said.
Unfortunately, what gets over looked by most members of society is that kids within the spectrum also possess some amazing gifts, strengths and talents.
From an early age Chris and his grandfather Bob developed and shared a special bond, a bond that benefited them both.
“My strongest connection as a kid was definitely him” Mr Varney said.
“When he was in his early 50s’, he’d just had a series of strokes that meant the whole left side of his body didn’t work” Mr Varney said. “He was half blind, couldn’t talk properly and I was a kid that just needed a sense of responsibility, I needed someone to look after because I was quite challenging myself.”
Caring for ‘Bob’ was the first job Chris ever had, as a 10 or 12 year old he would go to his grandparents on weekends and holidays.
“I think that’s probably one of the most significant things I’ll ever do” Mr Varney said.
“He was a man that was so physically limited and there was I who has a lot of psychiatric challenges, and it just was a great partnership, he was driven to make me less serious and I was just hoping to keep him well” Mr Varney said.
Chris learnt at an early age to not be restricted by the boundaries and limitations that were placed on him, but to embrace and overcome them.
This mindset was instilled in him by his parents, but more notably his mother Lisa.
For Lisa, Chris’ intensity as a child was evident even before he was born.
“He was terribly intense in utero, even before he was born, he literally wanted to kick his way out, I’m not talking normal kicks, because I’ve had other babies” Mrs Varney said. “It was an extreme, reactive, violent, ‘Get me out of here’, I can’t stand this.”
From the moment he was born, Chris’ anxiety and intensity was visible for all to see.
Nurses requested that Chris be given Phenobarbitone as a sedative, but as a registered nurse herself, Lisa wouldn’t have a bar of it.
It would be fair to say that the nurses were not very accommodating, or understanding of Chris, his intensity was something they hadn’t ever encountered in a new born.
These were not the cries of a usual new born.
“What I called a high pitched, shrill screech, it was very demanding” Mrs Varney said.
“They came in and told me ‘they didn’t like him and the fact he was leaving tomorrow was great because they were all going to the pub to celebrate.’’’ “ Which I thought was unprofessional” Mrs Varney said.
Once Lisa brought Chris home, the challenge of raising such an anxious and intense child really began.
“He didn’t want me to touch him, he didn’t want to be held, the five months of breast-feeding that I managed was a battle” Mrs Varney said.
Chris really challenged the innate parenting ideals and instincts that had been passed onto Lisa from her parents and the memories of how she was raised.
“I was very lucky to have the support of my fabulous parents, who had what I would say ‘normal rules’ for raising kids when I was younger, but they recognised in him that this child was different and so all the rules changed” Mrs Varney said.
Lisa realised very early on that Chris was not your average young boy, things that an average toddler wouldn’t even think of, distressed Chris greatly.
“When he was distressed, he wasn’t just annoyed by the situation he was in, or by what was troubling him he was paralysed with fear” Mrs Varney said.
“If you actually looked at him carefully, quite often he was in a tremor, he was shaking with the horror of whatever his situation was” Mrs Varney said.
Once Chris reached the age of five Lisa sought help.
“When she sought help for me and then comeback with the diagnosis, she then took a positive view of that, when everything else was very negative” Mr Varney said.
Lisa has always encouraged Chris to push through the boundaries that society had put on him due to his condition, she instilled an ‘I Can’ attitude that is the mantra that Chris lives by today.
“She emphasised the gifts, the strengths that I had, and reframed me away from the negative prescription she had been given of my future and said, ‘I’m going to be endlessly positive towards this little bloke’” Mr Varney said.
“It wasn’t a pretty exercise getting me to where I am now” Mr Varney said.
His mother has been one of the biggest inspirations in Chris’ life thus far, and without her and the supportive network around him, he would not be where he is today.
While many get inspired by great feats of bravery, skill and courage, Chris gets inspired by the “…very simple things in people”.
One of his earliest and greatest inspirations was a secondary school teacher from Wantirna College, by the name of Christine Horvath.
Unfortunately, Mrs Horvath passed away at the end of Chris’ VCE.
“She just had this way of connecting with students and finding something for everyone, and so she was a real people developer and that’s a leadership style I hope to reflect” Mr Varney said.
Once graduated, Chris pin pointed law as his career of choice, but learnt early on that again he may be a bit different to those around him.
“I wasn’t your typical law student” Mr Varney said.
What Chris did uncover however was his passion for advocacy and children’s rights and he would use the law degree to hone his skills with the aim to help rectify these global issues.
While it took Chris seven years to complete his law degree, which he did so in June this year, during his studies he was very active in various youth organisations.
He was the Co-Director of World Vision’s youth movement called Vision Generation (V-Gen) where he worked on a range of issues including: anti-slavery, child protection, child trafficking and the main one, child exploitation, be it sexual or labour.
In 2009 Chris was elected as the Australian Youth Representative to the United Nations (UN) where he spent four months in New York campaigning for advocacy and children’s rights.
“I really got to channel my passion for kids that did fall through cracks, that’s what took me into homeless shelters and juvenile detention centres” Mr Varney said.
In going into these juvenile detention centres and homeless shelters, Chris found kids that no longer believed in themselves and realised that a lot of those kids were actually on the autism spectrum.
“That was some of the most exhilarating stuff I’ve ever done” Mr Varney said.
A lot of these kids were in these detention centres for petty crimes, some threw a rock through a 7 Eleven window just to get a Curly Wurly because they were starving.
“When I saw that in the case of about 51 kids all under the age of 18, I was like ‘I know why I’m doing the law degree, this is the system that we need to change” Mr Varney said.
“I really got an affirmation that children’s rights and championing them in this country that thinks it does child’s rights well, really doesn’t” Mr Varney said.
Through his four month stint in New York Chris was a part of replacing the Magill Juvenile Detention Centre in South Australia, helped collaborate the ‘Dear Kevin’ book and pushed for a National Children’s Commissioner.
In July this year, Chris began his work with the Foundation for Young Australians (FYA).
A project that Chris is working on now is called ‘Propeller’.
“What we’re passionate about is making social change accessible for young people who we call, ‘ordinarily extraordinary’” Mr Varney said.
The plan is to create videos of these young people talking about the projects that are undertaking in their local community and ‘propel’ them around social media in the hope on inspiring others.
Given the amount Chris has crammed into the first 25 years of his life, the future is unknown but one thing is for sure…two words will be present…I Can.
Foundation for Young Australians 21-27 Somerset Place, Melbourne CBD, VIc
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