Backtrack on the front foot helping young kids
PRINCE Harry had the sort of upbringing where he didn’t need help from Bernie Shakeshaft’s Backtrack Program, but that didn’t mean he didn’t understand the importance of the way kids at risk were having their lives changed by working with sheepdogs and horses, and being forever changed by the human kindness being sent their way.
Prince Harry showed the crowd at Dubbo's Victoria Park last Wednesday, October 17, that he remembers skills likely learned during his days as a jackeroo on a Queensland cattle station in 2003. The prince got his dog to jump over the obstacle at Victoria Park, a moment that was symbolic for the young Dubbo teenagers who had seen how the local offshoot of the Backtrack Program, Leaderlife, was allowing them to surmount their own personal barriers.
Jo Leader has spent years making a real difference to so many lives at Dubbo's Apollo House, and now she’s getting the highest praise from Bernie Shakeshaft, the bloke who’s not only transformed the lives of 1000-odd kids from his Armidale farm, but helped dropped that city’s long-term youth crime rate by about 60 per cent.
The philosophy is to heal young humans by extending humanity towards them, and fixing the local community at the same time.
Mr Shakeshaft believes Leaderlife at Apollo House approach of starting kids from a younger age than his own program is working. "That’s why they’re years in front, because if you can get on top of these young fellas at that young age, before they get locked up at 16 or 17, (you're more likely to get a positive outcome)," he said.
"When you work with kids who’ve already been locked up in juvenile detention, that’s a hard, hard thing to do,” Mr Shakeshaft admitted.
“I just look at the commitment and passion that Jo Leader shows... it’s just fantastic,” he said at a special screening of the "Backtrack Boys" documentary in Dubbo last Saturday. The documentary was made by director Catherine Scott and features Mr Shakeshaft and the youth program he runs from a shed on the outskirts of Armidale.
Mr Shakeshaft believes almost all our public policy settings are not only wrong, but costing us dearly.
“I’m not very good with maths but what I do know with my simple maths is it costs us about $25,000 to keep one of these kids out of jail, (preventing them from) going onto welfare payments, and then have their own kids go on to school and education,” Mr Shakeshaft said.
“The current conventional process is to put them in jail at $260,000 a year and ensure that 90 per cent of them will go back into jail so they will be on welfare and their kids will be on welfare – the economics of this is ridiculous.
“Taking the human side out of it, it’s ridiculous what we’re doing. I’m not very smart but who’s doing the maths on this stuff, seriously, who’s doing the maths?” he queried.
Backtrack program coordinator Paul Dawson agrees the system is badly out of whack.
“Our public policy settings are wrong. I think the biggest hurdles we’ve come up against in the 14 years (of running the Backtrack program) is that just when you see some light at the end of the tunnel there’s a change of government and funding gets dragged from underneath you. So that’s why we can’t rely on it,” Mr Dawson said, but he’s buoyed by the fact that when people see their newly released "Backtrack Boys" documentary, they understand that what they’re seeing is not only the way forward, but the “truth”.
“We’re now trying to change the mindset of government to look at five-year funding, or something like that, to try and break that cycle.
One of the Backtrack supervisors who made the trip to Dubbo last week is testament to the program's success, having spent seven years with the program before he’d fully gotten his life on track. The people who run Backtrack believe that’s just how long it takes, and that’s why three or six month programs are a total waste of money.
“It’s not bloody rocket science what we do, it’s just general people caring and being passionate about what we do,” Mr Dawson said.
Mr Shakeshaft agrees that the work they do, and the almost unbelievable results they achieve, are not rocket science.
He believes Australia has got it all wrong. "What are we doing about it being wrong and why are we paying our taxpayers’ money for those things that are wrong?” Mr Shakeshaft asked.
“I’m not into the politics; what I’m into is peoples’ lives.
“If you keep doing what you’ve been doing and expect a different result, that's the definition of insanity. I think we’re living with this insanity, or is there something else crazy going on?” he said.
He told the audience at the Q&A session after the documentary screening that he was once almost sacked from a public service job for hugging a child who was scared and afraid, and who needed a hug.
“What are we doing to other humans,” Mr Shakeshaft said almost as a plea.
“The very thing the bureaucrats say we can’t do is hug a kid in trouble, when that’s exactly what they need.” IT’S soooo easy to be late. We’ve all done it, but have we thought about the impact it has?
Some people seem to think it’s cool, fashionable and spontaneous. Some businesses operate as if it’s normal, that it shows they’re busy and important.
But I’m inclined to believe the research that suggests that some of the ‘little things’ we do can be awful for those on the receiving end – and making people wait is right up there.
When we make an appointment and then arrive late, keeping the other person waiting, are we saying their time doesn’t matter as much as ours? Sure, we had something come up, or we just had to finish that task. But did we consider that the person we were meeting may be as time poor as we are, or have important matters to attend to? Just like us?
That person may not make as much money as us per hour, but their time is just as valuable to them as ours is to us. Hold ups happen to all of us, but how hard is it to send a text, or call? To show we value their time and them.
If being late is a habit for you and you feel it’s time for a change, try these fixes:
Set your watch five minutes fast (or however many minutes you need) and forget that you ever did it. That way, you’ll always be on time and can stop stressing over being the last one at work or to drop your children at school. And you won’t miss out on the lane you want to swim in, or your favourite car space. Schedule your appointments to finish
5 or 15 minutes before the next one, so you have time to prepare and to be on time.
Or just remind yourself that other people matter.
Show the people you are working/ playing/living with that you value their time, and them, and you’ll all have a nicer day.
Have a punctual week.
z In this series of articles, Dubbo-based ikifit founder Kim Macrae writes about ideas and activities that can help brighten our own lives and the lives of those around us. Each article is based around one of the words in the iki song “Every Single Day”. The core belief is that the key to living productive and rewarding lives is choosing – and practising – behaviours that lead to positive, life-affirming outcomes for ourselves, our families and our communities.