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Christie is a Registered Nurse from our Youth Check program on the Gold Coast.
Ahead of International Nurses Day, we sat down with Christie Hosking, a Registered Nurse from our Youth Check program on the Gold Coast. Christie shared her journey from hospital nursing to working alongside vulnerable young people in the community, supporting their wellbeing and sexual health.
When she first started with Youth Check, the program was still in its early stages. As a pilot and the first program that Lives Lived Well ran to support young people experiencing homelessness, it was a one-person role. Having previously worked with headspace for five years, Christie was able to draw on strong professional relationships to support referrals. She also took a proactive approach to building connections, reaching out to services, and saying yes to opportunities.
“In the first few months of Youth Check, I really focused on connecting with other services, doing in-services, attending pop-up clinics at Gold Coast Youth Service, and getting out there,” she shared.
In community work, those connections go a long way. They open doors for young people, make the journey between services smoother and most importantly help them feel safe to reach out. Christie’s efforts have helped the program thrive, delivering early intervention, genuine conversations, and access to sexual health and wellbeing support.
One of Christie’s early challenges was the absence of an on-site GP. “There are a lot of limitations. I can’t do pathology or referrals without a GP. Education was mostly all I could offer these young people” she explained. That changed when she was offered a trial of a machine capable of testing for gonorrhoea and chlamydia, returning results in under 20 minutes. If a result comes back positive, Christie connects the young person with a bulk-billing GP she has a longstanding relationship with and can accompany them to the appointment, streamlining a process that might otherwise involve long waits and multiple steps.
A fun fact about Christie, she still carries multiple pens and a torch in her pocket, a habit from her hospital days, even though she almost never reaches for the torch anymore. She also wears colourful scrubs. “When you’re working with young people, you want to make your space feel not so clinical,” she says.
When asked about a recent moment that stayed with her, Christie recalled an appointment from two weeks ago. At the end of the session, the young person told her it had been the most helpful experience she had.
“For me, that’s really close to my heart,” Christie said. “I think it’s so cool that not only am I educating young people about sexual health and how to be safe, but I also see a lot of young people who have been through sexual trauma. Just talking through different grounding techniques and helping them reconnect with their body again… I think that’s so beautiful.” That moment has her excited about what the future holds and how many more young people she might reach.
Although Youth Check will wrap up this June 2026, the education and life-changing conversations Christie has had with these young people will stay with them, guiding them in the right direction long after the program ends.
Thank you, Christie, for your dedication and your genuine care for the young people you support.
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