Is sport drowning in grog?

Transcription

1 Is sport drowning in grog? John Rogerson, The Good Sports Program, The Australian Drug Foundation FACILITATOR: Our first speaker today is John Rogerson who has been the director of the Australian Drug Foundation Good Sports Program since it commenced as a pilot program in Since that time John has grown Good Sports to the point where there s now over 1000 sporting clubs across a range of states involved in the program. And John s going to be talking today on is sport drowning in grog? JOHN ROGERSON: Thanks, Cheryl, for the welcome. I d like to also acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and thank them for the opportunity of being here and also to thank Roger. Rodger and I go back a long way. Rodger is the best back pocket I ve ever played with, just a sensational footballer and we played a bit of football together. And I d also like to thank Janice, Bodelia and Kelly for letting me keep the bottles that they drank last night at dinner. That was very nice of them. No, no, it wasn t all of them. And I think Bodelia s had a few today already, geeze. I just want to talk to you about Good Sports and how the program sort of started in Australia and where we re going with the program right at the moment. And I guess to me the best way to explain to you Good Sports is to show you this slide. This is a photo off the out of the first page of an annual report of one of our level 3 clubs. And the caption at the bottom says, Some of the locals enjoying Saturday night in the social rooms. This is a club that s been working with the whole issue of alcohol and sport for 15 years. I ll talk a little bit more about them later. But you can see the focus of this club is around the family. So, the focus of this club is creating an environment that includes families. Particularly young people but also players partners as well. And it certainly an important focus we have with Good Sports. I guess the challenge with this whole issue of alcohol and sport is that most of the clubs, their easiest way of raising revenue is selling alcohol. And that s the it s been the real challenge for us, is how do we change this culture but at the same time make sure that clubs are really viable? And over the last five years we ve been able to actually show that you can actually change this culture and actually make clubs a lot more thriving, a lot more viable, much better managed, because they re focused around families and young people. And as a result of that they generate a whole range of new revenue streams, they have much more sponsorship appeal and they re much better managed. Today I just wanted to look at what is this problem with alcohol and sport, particularly in community sporting clubs, what the solution is from our perspective and our experience with that, how we re implementing the program in Australian, our project partners. Talk about the national roll out and the status in each state. And then just talk to you about the key success factors, the factors which really make this program work. One of the things that s been really important in this program is the research that underpins it. We ve been working with this whole issue of alcohol in sport now for about 10 years in the Australian Drug Foundation. We did five years of research before we actually started to put together what we saw as a really good solution to this problem. So, we got a really sense of what drove this culture in Australia. What drove this culture in community sporting clubs. What were the positives about it. What were the negatives about it. And then we got a really good sense about how much alcohol people were consuming in community sporting clubs. The other thing that we do a lot of is research and evaluation so Central to Health: sustaining well-being in remote and rural Australia 1

2 each pilot and each program that we have running we constantly evaluate to make sure we re continuing to provide a program that works for the communities. I wanted to run you through some of the research that looks at how much people drink when they re at a community sporting club. This is the results of a survey that was done in the year 2000 in the metropolitan football league in Melbourne. There were 632 surveys, most of the surveys came back from players. It s a football club so you d expect most of the participants to be males with a mean age of 29.6 years. 63 per cent of those who responded socialised at their club once or twice a week and 32 per cent did so three or four times a week. And that s when you see how much they drink you ll see that it s a major concern. I guess one of the things we wanted to understand in this survey was just how embedded this culture of alcohol and sport is in this particular code of football. And you can see that 70 per cent agreed that having a drink at their club is just an important part of the tradition of participating in their club. And also an important part in the enjoyment of the experience of being in their club. So, just being able to come to a sport and have a drink is just something that s really embedded in our culture. And I don t think any of us would be really surprised about that. I guess the concern for us was that only 25 per cent of the samples said they d never been concerned about anyone drink/driving. And when you look at how much they drank when they were at the club you can understand why. 42 per cent of those who responded drank five or more standard drinks each time they were at the club, 25 per cent drank seven or more standard drinks. And 7 per cent drank the amount of alcohol that those empty bottles over there represent every time they were at the club. And 13 per cent of the 18 to 20 year olds drank that amount of alcohol over there every time they were at the club. So, you can see that a third of the sample drank that amount a third of the sample drank at the club three or four times a week. So, you can see the amount of alcohol that s consumed in these community sporting clubs is really high. And then when you look at the number of people that actually travel to and from the club as the driver of a car you can see the drink/driving issues themselves, let alone any of the other short and long term harms associated with drinking that amount of alcohol, are absolutely staggering. So, that s the picture that we got out of this one particular football league. We then compared the football league to a series of research we did with cricket, lawn bowls and golf clubs. And you can see the cricket clubs, not quite up there with the footy clubs but pretty close. The lawn bowls and golf clubs, they don t have the really high levels of drinking but you can still see that and the reason for that is there s just not enough young males associated with lawn bowls and golf. So, you can see it s very much a young male s effect. But even though the really high risk levels of drinking associated with golf and bowls aren t as acute as the other sports, they re still a major concern for this program because there s a whole range of harms associated with that amount of drinking. At the end of 2004 we released some research, and this research was funded by the AER Foundation, where we did the same work right across Australia. So, we looked at cricket, rugby union, Aussie Rules, tennis, surf lifesaving, and one other sport which escapes me. Interestingly enough, we couldn t get Australian Rugby League to participate in the survey and I guess you wonder why that is, don t you? Well, I guess what the research again showed was that the sports where there s lots of young males, cricket, rugby, Aussie Rules, where the really high levels of drinking are, you can see that in surf lifesaving the levels of high risk drinking are lower. And that s because there s a it was about a 50/50 male/female split there. But even where the really high risk levels of drinking are not there you can still see that Central to Health: sustaining well-being in remote and rural Australia 2

3 the level of drinking is still a major concern. Particularly around drink/driving and some of those other short term harms. So, that s sort of the extent of the problem and it s quite significant. And I guess the challenge for us was how do we actually change this culture and also help the clubs deal with this whole issue of viability. So, what we came up with was a three step accreditation process. The level 1 really, there s a lot of community sporting clubs around Australia that have a liquor licence, they had no idea what the liquor licence means and therefore don t comply with it. There s a number of community sporting clubs that actually don t have a liquor licence. And just from a whole, just from the duty of care point of view, we felt it was really critical to make sure the clubs understood what the liquor licence was about and actually complied with it. And got them on the track of making sure that when they served alcohol in their club rooms that they did so responsibly. So, this level is every club has to have a liquor licence, they need to have at least one person in their club trained in responsible service of alcohol. Now, that s what happens in Victoria. In a number of other states it s actually compulsory for everybody who serves alcohol to be trained in RSA. And so we vary this model depending on what the requirements are at each state. You may think it s relatively easy to get clubs understanding the licensing issues and it s not. You have to give them time just to work through those issues. But often we ve had a lot of support from the Liquor Licensing Authorities in all the states and that s been really critical to helping clubs understand this issue. The level where we get most of the change is level 2. This is the area where we work with clubs around their practices. So, one of the things they have to do to actually manage this whole issue of alcohol responsibly. So, making sure that in the bar they just don t have full strength beer, they have light beer, they have soft drink. And, you know, for some clubs that s a major change. Making sure they have a safe transport strategy, so, if someone does drink too much how do they get those people home. Making sure that when they serve alcohol they have more than just beer nuts and chips, making sure they have substantial food available. And the whole one of the most interesting things to talk to clubs about is how they use alcohol in their fundraising and as prizes. An under 16 team won the premiership in a northern league in Melbourne a couple of years ago and actually celebrated on the ground with a slab of beer. It s very common for clubs to raffle off a trailer load of beer or a wheelbarrow load of spirits. And often they ll have the wheelbarrow loaded with spirits and wheel it around the ground selling off raffle tickets and they ll have kids sitting on the wheelbarrow. So, they re the sorts of things we talk a lot to clubs about. And what those practices tell their local community around how they manage alcohol. So, we spend a lot of time with clubs on that particular issue. And then the last level is getting clubs to work through a policy. So, very much focused on changing the practices before we get clubs to write policies. I guess the most important thing with this program is that we actually give clubs five years to work through the program. And when you re dealing with volunteers, people that, you know, this isn t the most important thing they do in their life but it is something that s really important to them, you have to give them time to work through the process. And we give them one year to get to level 1, or one season, two seasons, or two years, to get to level 2, and another two seasons to get to level 3. We also have a level 0 and that s for clubs that actually don t sell or consume alcohol in their club rooms. So, they might have an end of year function in the local hotel and so they d need to develop a safe transport strategy. Central to Health: sustaining well-being in remote and rural Australia 3

4 And also look at the issue of how they use alcohol in fundraising as prizes. I guess this is for us what this program s all about, this is what we re trying to do, we re trying to reduce the alcohol related problems in the community. So, try and reduce the drink/driving, the violence, the damage, the assault, all those issues that we all know about that are connected with alcohol misuse. We re trying to increase club viability and certainly for a lot of clubs that s a constant battle. And I think this is something where this program can actually help with it as well. We re trying to change player and member behaviour, we re trying to increase the impact of sporting clubs in our communities and we re trying to reach the targets that we ve set ourselves that we need to achieve for our funders around getting clubs accredited. I guess one of the most critical issues that got us started in this program was the research clearly shows that one of the protective factors against young people using illicit drugs is getting them involved in community sport. And I guess the concern for the Australian Drug Foundation was we can get kids playing sport but what s the point in teaching them to drink at really high risk levels. So, that was one of the key motivators for us to get involved. Good Sports is focused around community sporting clubs, we re actually not very interested in working with elite sporting clubs and they get quite surprised when we say that, Well, actually this program is for the community. And I guess you d all be aware of some of the problems that we re having with our elite sports around Australia. So, that s why our focus is community sport. The most critical thing from our perspective is that to make this program work you actually have to work with the local community sporting clubs. You actually have to provide them with support. It s not a program where you run in with a folder and say, This is what you ve got to do to become accredited. You actually have to work with them. And that s the critical that s the critical aspect of this program and I believe one of the most critical things for making it work. And there are a lot of benefits for clubs with this program, when we started we talked a lot about whether we d actually provided incentives to clubs to become involved. And when we did a pilot in Victoria in the year 2000 we were looking for around 10 to 15 clubs to be involved in the pilot. So, we approached 25 clubs in rural Victoria, every one of them put their hand up and said, Yes, we want to be involved in this pilot. And I guess what that really showed us was that the communities actually want to deal with this issue but they re actually not sure how to deal with it. And certainly the number of clubs in the program we have now confirms that. These are the benefits we talk to clubs about. And this has come out of the research that the AER Foundation got the Australian Institute of Primary Care to do in the year So the new culture attracts families and young players, you get growth in memberships and junior teams as a result of that, you get more people socialising at your club. You develop new revenue streams because you ve got more people in the club. You get change of behaviour of members. You get improved relationships with those in the community. And particularly one of the things we talk to clubs a lot about are mothers. It appears that it s the mothers more than the fathers who decide which sport their kids play and where they play that sport. So, we get clubs to really think about how do they connect with parents in the community and influence those parents deciding to use their club for their young people to participate in. Obviously getting clubs to comply with the law. And we help them do that by subsidising their training around RSA. But helping them to comply with the law obviously impacts positively on their duty of care and how they work towards that. And that s a critical issue for all community sport. In terms of how we implement this program, the Good Sports team is based in Melbourne, that s historically where the program started. Central to Health: sustaining well-being in remote and rural Australia 4

5 We actually don t though do much of the implementation of the program, we actually fund community groups because it s the community groups who understand the particular issues in their community. They know the networks and they know how to communicate with the local people. So, they re the people that we actually fund with this program. We actually had some people in Melbourne because the group that we were using to run the program in Melbourne we were funding, it actually went bankrupt. Not because we didn t pay them enough but for a range of other issues. And so we actually we couldn t find another community partner to work with us so we re actually doing that ourselves at the moment. So, that s the only place we re doing that. As I said before, the hands-on support of clubs is really critical. And this whole idea of customer service, when a club makes a decision to get involved you actually have to back that up really quickly and get to that club. And we guarantee them a visit within three weeks so that they can start the process once they re interested, start the process and getting involved. And we invest a lot in these organisations and also in our people because that s really where the future of these sorts of programs is determined, by the local people. I ve talked a lot about our project partners, these are the people who work in the communities with the program and I m really delighted that one of our project partners, I met them at dinner last night, the Northern Districts Community Health Centre, and Trish Currie and Elaine Carter. And Trish s husband actually, Greg, he s one of our partners he does a lot of the work in the Northern Districts Community Health Centre and he does a sensational job. And this is the sort of work that Greg would do, supporting clubs and committee and their unpaid workers actually understand the program and work through the issues. You ll find in clubs that there are maybe one or two people who actually want to do something about this alcohol issue and the rest of the committee and other people will look at them a little bit differently because of that. So, they need support. And that s certainly one of the key functions that our local partners provide in this program. They do the local promotion, they verify the data back to us so that we can accredit clubs. And they also monitor compliance. One of the critical things is we can accredit clubs but it can be easy for them to go back to their old ways so we need to make sure that they re actually continuing to do what we accredit them to do. So, the sorts of groups that we ve got involved as our community partners are the sports assemblies, community health centres, we re using local government and we ve got a couple of staff as I said before. And local government seems to be an opportunity for us that we re exploring in a number of states as well. So, these are where our community partners are in Victoria so you can see that in rural Victoria they re spaced right around the state. You can see that in Swan Hill/Kerang that s where the Northern District Community Health Centre focus is and they really are an important part of this program. This is a comment that was put in the research done by the Tribunal and I ll just let you read it. So, you can see that people really value this support that they get from our community partners, or our project partners. One of the critical issues of course with alcohol is that clubs get really worried about losing their revenue. And this is a slide that shows what one club, the Yinnar Football/Netball Club, which is one of our level 3 clubs, they ve been working on this issue for 13 years and you can see over the 13 year period their bar revenue has actually declined 38 per cent but they ve picked up a lot more sponsorship and membership revenue as a consequence of that. So, the net impact of that is those figures are actually wrong, it should be 142 per cent and 161 per cent. But the net impact is a 68 per cent increase in their revenue over this period of time. Central to Health: sustaining well-being in remote and rural Australia 5

6 Now, we ve actually got clubs now where their bar revenue actually doesn t decrease. In some clubs it actually increases because they re pulling a lot more people in through the club. So, they re selling a lot of other things apart from alcohol across the bar. You know, selling soft drinks and low alcohol beer and a whole range of other things. So, it doesn t necessarily this program doesn t necessarily have to impact on bar revenue but if it does you can see that clubs can deal with it really positively. Now, I ve just got some quotes out of this research and I actually won t read through them, I ll just let you read through them, but it just gives you a feeling for how some of the clubs that are in the program, what they re thinking about the program. One of the things the program does is give people in the club approval to actually make changes that are in line with the law. And you can see that the running of the bar is an important issue. And here s one that: In two years we went from five to ten junior teams. And that s not uncommon for our clubs. We had one club in the Geelong area that even the taxis wouldn t go to. The club was so bad that the taxis wouldn t go to and it was a club where it was made of all senior blokes playing cricket. And this club actually joined Good Sports because they knew they needed to change the culture of the club if it was going to survive. So, actually now the taxis come back to the club, which is nice, but they ve actually got a whole junior program running in a range of high schools. And you can say this club is dramatically change. And just this last some quotes here I ll let you read through. So, you can see this issue of involving families is something that s really important and something that we need to encourage clubs to be a part of. Now, I just want to talk about the national roll-out of this program, the AER Foundation in 2003 funded us to do a business plan to look at rolling out Good Sports right around Australia. And in the end as a result of that business plan the AER Foundation funded us to undertake this program right around Australia. So, I m just going to talk you through how that s working. I guess our goal is that by the end of 2008 we ll accredit 50 per cent of all the community sporting clubs, licensed community sporting clubs, in Australia. We currently have 1117 clubs in the program nationally. We commenced in Tasmania in the year 2003, we have 54 clubs in the program with three project officers based pretty evenly around the state. In Victoria we started in 2001, we have 971 clubs, so, we re just shy of And we have nine rural community partners and nine part time staff who work in Melbourne. Most of those staff will work between the hours of 4 and 8, four nights a week, because that s really when the only time that you can get to sporting clubs. In New South Wales we ve been running a pilot for the last three years, we have 25 clubs in the program, Good Sports was one of the top 10 initiatives that was discussed at the 2003 Alcohol Summit. And I ve had this next line in for a long time,, but Darryl has been negotiating on our behalf and we ve been negotiating to try and get some financial support from the New South Wales Government. And we re struggling but we re getting there. And in South Australia we commenced in the winter 2004, there s 67 clubs in the program and two pilot staff sorry, two project staff. In Queensland we re having some discussions as we re having some discussions in Western Australia. And I hope that in the next little while that we ll be in Northern running this program. The AER Foundation a couple of years ago gave us $4 million to roll this program out nationally. They gave us some money to set up the national organisation and particularly to set up some of the resources needed to run the program. But more importantly gave us some money to do some marketing of the program. A lot of the money is based on seed funding so we ve got money for each state but before we can go into a Central to Health: sustaining well-being in remote and rural Australia 6

7 state we have to at least get that money matched so that we can, you know, the program can exist for a lot longer than just the initial funding. In terms of how we manage this program, performance management is really critical. We work very closely with our community partners but we have really high expectations from them and we have a contract with each of them. So it s really we have to strategically manage our relationship with each of our community partners and make sure that we re helping them generate new clubs and helping them move clubs through the program. So, that s really critical. We provide a lot of resources to assist clubs and assist our partners run the program. And also we have a marketing campaign and we have $2.5 million to spend over three years to promote the program. And I guess this program is really about giving partners a choice, a choice in how they what sort of club they want to send their kids too. And I m just going to show these adds, these are the adds. A lot of irony in there and we re hitting the issue head on but that s our strategy at the moment. These are some of our community partners sorry, these are our national partners and you can clearly see the AER Foundation in the middle there as one of our key funders. But we ve had a lot of support from a lot of different groups around Australia and that s been really yeah, it s been really exciting working with those people. I guess in conclusion, Good Sports does reduce drink/driving, it can reduce violence and damage and noise in community sporting clubs. It does create environments that protects young people from using illicit and illegal drugs. It does connect young people and families together in communities and it does enhance the capacity of volunteers in our community sporting clubs. And I guess I come back to the slide that I started with, I guess by focusing on helping sporting clubs to be much more thriving and viable in our community means that we have a much more important community resource. And I think that s the challenge for all of us, how do we help these great community groups because we need our community sporting clubs to be much more effective. And I think this is one of the programs that can really help them do that. And I think the clubs get excited when they see that they re getting some support to do that. So, thank you, very much. PRESENTER John Rogerson is currently Director Good Sports at the Australian Drug Foundation. He has held this position since the Good Sports program commenced in During this time Good Sports has expanded from its initial research pilot to having over 1000 community sporting clubs involved in Tasmania, Victoria, South Australia and NSW. Central to Health: sustaining well-being in remote and rural Australia 7