Stronger Through Sport | Connecting at risk youth to community sport

Stronger Through Sport is a pilot program designed by the Alcohol and Drug Foundation to reduce offending and anti-social behaviour in young people aged 14 to 20, by helping them overcome common barriers to joining community sport - a proven protective factor against alcohol and other drug use.

The program connects at-risk young people with local sporting clubs, provides financial support to cover prohibitive costs, like membership and uniforms, and builds the capacity of clubs to support them. The pilot’s effectiveness and feasibility were evaluated, with ethics approval and oversight from Bellberry Limited.

Our objectives

Stronger Through Sport was designed and evaluated against three core objectives:

• Build community sporting club capacity to support and engage at-risk youth, through trained Club Leaders acting as positive role models within the club.
• Identify at-risk youth not currently engaged in community sport, through referral pathways with youth support organisations.
• Increase participation, retention and engagement of at-risk youth aged 14 to 20 in community-based sport, removing the practical barriers that typically stand in the way.

The issue

Community sport is a well-established protective factor against alcohol and other drug use in young people. It reduces unsupervised leisure time, builds self-esteem and problem-solving skills and connects young people to positive adult and peer role models, all of which are linked to reduced offending and anti-social behaviour.

Despite this, participation in organised sport among at-risk young people remains low.

Many would-be participants are held back by cost, transport, low parental support and lack of access to equipment - barriers that increase significantly with social and economic disadvantage.

Our approach

Stronger Through Sport connects youth support organisations (schools, youth services and similar) with local sporting clubs already accredited through the Alcohol and Drug Foundation's Good Sports program, ensuring at-risk young people are referred into clubs already actively working to create safer, healthier environments.

Referring organisations identify and recruit young people to the program.

Clubs appoint Club Leaders to act as positive role models and supports for the young people, following successful completion of purpose-built online training.

Young people then have access to financial grants to cover the practical costs of joining a club - from uniforms to travel to attend training and games.

Delivered and evaluated across four regions

Stronger Through Sport was piloted in four regions across three states: Geraldton (WA), Glenorchy and Huon Valley (TAS), and Toowoomba (QLD) - locations selected for high local need and strong existing Good Sports and Local Drug Action Team presence.

The pilot ran from October 2022 to April 2024 across three sporting seasons.

Our impact

• 163 at-risk young people recruited to the program with 159 (98%) going on to join a club.
• 32 sporting clubs took part with 25 referring organisations identifying and recruiting participants.
• 59 Club Leaders trained and appointed across participating clubs.
• Almost $70,000 in financial grants distributed directly to young people and clubs covering costs including membership fees, uniforms, equipment and transport, with membership fees supported for 99% of grant recipients.
• Around one quarter of participating young people took part in more than one season, an early indicator of retention within a pilot that only tracked three seasons.

What clubs, referrers and young people told us

^{Source: Alcohol and Drug Foundation. Results from the evaluation of Stronger through Sport program [Unpublished data} 2022-2024.}

Supported by

The pilot evaluation was prepared for the Australian Government Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.

For more information

For more information, Melissa Cowan, Manager, New Strategic Programs