Tackling violence on and off the footy field in NSW

This footy season, regional NSW rugby league clubs are tackling domestic violence through an awareness campaign to change attitudes and behaviours in regional communities.

The Tackling Violence campaign is a community education, early intervention and prevention programme that uses strong local leadership, regional rugby league clubs and NRL stars to promote anti-domestic violence messages in regional communities.

There are four components of the Tackling Violence programme. In recognition for sponsorship: clubs sign a code of conduct that penalises players and officials for any domestic violence offences, community service announcements featuring players are broadcast on local commercial TV; all clubs attend a domestic violence workshop delivered by Tackling Violence Educators and a high school program raising awareness of domestic violence and encouraging healthy relationships is delivered to local students.

This season 26 clubs from regional NSW are participating in the Tackling Violence programme, including the Wilcannia Boomerangs who recently defeated the Broken Hill Geebungs 34-18 in the Outback Rugby League grand final.

Brendon Adams has been associated with the Wilcannia Boomerangs Rugby League Club since 2011 and initiated the clubs involvement in the Tackling Violence programme in 2010.

Since the club began participating in the programme, Brendon has noticed a huge decrease in domestic violence. Players are being more responsible, can now recognise the signs and prevent situations from occurring. He has also noticed an improvement between the player’s relationships with their families and partners.

“If one of the players came to me with an issue I’d sit down with him, offer my support and work through whatever services he might need, it could be counselling, financial advice or support for gambling, drugs or alcohol. We might even grab some other players and work through it together as a group,” Brendon said.

The Wilcannia Boomerangs have also put a prevention strategy in place so that younger players can participate in the Tackling Violence programme and gain the knowledge and understanding of domestic violence issues early on.

“The Tackling Violence programme has been a real success this year, a lot of the younger players, now in the senior grade, will be the next generation to continue the programme. As young kids they became aware of the issues and now as young men they know how to support each other and prevent domestic violence.”

“The biggest change we’ve seen for the younger people is that they can now express themselves when they go through emotional issues. We see the NRL raising awareness of mental health and domestic violence and now the young people doing the programme in Wilcannia have become young leaders themselves,” Brendon said.