More than a sports club, Reclink kicks goals by changing lives

Less alcohol and drug use and more stable lives — this program works, says Greg Barns

CONNECTION,

how important is that? Being a part of a group of like-minded people doing a positive thing. I don’t think there’s enough emphasis put on how important that stuff is. The average Joe needs to know that you’re not a lost cause, that you can turn it all around. You can have an amazing life, you can go to those places and you can come back.”

So says Damien Lorenz, a graduate of one of Australia’s most successful programs for disadvantaged communities. Damien once battled serious drug addiction but by engaging with Reclink, a nationwide agency which works through the medium of sport and recreation to assist vulnerable Australians, he has been able to stabilise his life and just as importantly that of his family.

Reclink has been running for over two decades now, growing from modest beginnings at the Sacred Heart Mission in St Kilda, to becoming an important contributor to the social fabric of communities around Australia, including in Tasmania.

It is currently seeking funding from the Federal Government to roll out a program focusing on people who are experiencing tough times because of drug use and alcohol abuse.

If it is successful then Burnie, Devonport, Launceston, Georgetown, Campbell Town, Brighton/ Glenorchy, New Norfolk, Southern Midland, Glamorgan Spring Bay and Latrobe will all become sites for Reclink programs.

While in Victoria Reclink has built a high profile partly through its annual football match that attracts AFL players, actors, musicians and others its work has been analysed in a recent report by La Trobe University’s Centre for Sport and Social Impact.

The La Trobe report, published in November, evaluated the effectiveness of the Reclink model of delivering programs to marginalised and vulnerable groups in the community. Reclink collaborates with community organisations and sporting clubs to provide sporting and recreational programs which engage those groups.

In Tasmania the program currently runs in Burnie, Devonport, Launceston, Georgetown, Campbelltown and the Brighton/Glenorchy area.

Over the study period of 12 months, Reclink delivered 45,000 sport and recreation opportunities to about 3200 individuals. It engaged with 290 community agencies such as sporting clubs, and more than 600 volunteers worked on the program.

The results of the La Trobe study show a high level of satisfaction and importantly the generation of positive outcomes for individuals such as Damien.

The La Trobe University study notes that 71 per cent of the participants it surveyed, “reported a better outcome since participating with Reclink. A better outcome,” the study says, “is defined as including those respondents who indicated a positive change on at least one of seven life events since their participation in the Reclink National Program. This might include for example spending less time in a mental health facility or drug and alcohol facility, less involvement with the police less time spent in a

corrections facility, or a reduction in problem gambling, etc.”

From the point of view of community safety and rehabilitation of young at risk offenders the Reclink program study results are telling.

More than 80 per cent of participants surveyed said they had reduced their use of drugs and alcohol, had less involvement with police, had more stable housing and reduced problem gambling.

Sporting clubs today, like business, must have a social licence if they are to be successful in the areas and communities where they are based.

And Reclink provides that opportunity. As one sports organisation observed; “For us it’s the contact with that target of demographic, that part of the population that in our normal activity as we sponsor clubs we are not going to have any interaction with these types of clients. So Reclink gives us access to a portion of the population we might not otherwise access. We try to have partnerships with groups like those that deliver sporting opportunities for people with disabilities such as (organisation name), they have the expertise in the field with their client base and we have the expertise with our sport. We said ‘We’ll scratch your back and you scratch ours.’ Everyone benefits.”

Of course, as the La Trobe study observes, the success of Reclink’s sports and recreation opportunities program depends on the quality of staff and the commitment of participants in the program. Reclink is not a cure-all for people at risk, and does not pretend to be so. But it is a novel way to utilise the universal language of sport and recreation.

Here in Tasmania an organisation like Reclink, and a similar approach recently initiated by former AFL Tasmania chief Scott Wade and his colleague Sachie Yasuda which operates in a similar space, is critical because governments of all persuasions have failed demonstrably to lift at risk people out of the danger zone. Too often bureaucratic inertia and a silo-like approach to program delivery perpetuates intergenerational disadvantage.

Governments get better bang for their buck by funding organisations like Reclink, the Salvos and others in this space.