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Administrator
Administrators play a vital role in sport, particularly to reduce the potential for things to go wrong. Here, you can access resources to help you manage risks in your sport.
Coach or Official
Coaches and officials are what make sport tick. They play a crucial role in helping keep sport safe, fair and inclusive. Here are a number of tools and resources to help you do just that.
Player
If you are a player then you can make a huge contribution to making sport safe, fair and inclusive. Your behaviour influences others, not only your team mates, but everyone involved in sport.
Parents
As a parent you should be aware of your clubs responsibilities. At the same time you also have responsibilities and you can play a huge role in creating a safe environment for your child.
Supported Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and girls across regional and remote Queensland through participation opportunities and educational support.
The Diamond Spirit program aims to improve equity in opportunities for physical activity, education and employment among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and girls living in remote and regional communities.
At its highest level, the program has three pillars:
Engage – focus on delivering participation and pathway opportunities (remote)'
Empower – focus on building capacity in remote communities (remote)
Educate – focus on increasing school attendance and educational outcomes (regional)
The engage pillar provides participation pathways for children living in remote communities. Programs are predominately delivered through local primary schools with a view of transitioning to after-school programs at local Police Citizens Youth Club (PCYC) centres. The aim of the engage pillar is to instil positive messages to students at a young age, focussing on the benefits of sport and physical activity with longer term benefits of improved physical literacy, health and well-being of students.
The empower pillar aims to build the capacity of communities to deliver ongoing netball programs through a tailored coach and officials development program, providing employment opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander women living in community.
The educate pillar employs full-time teachers who provide mentoring support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander female students in years 7 to 12, aiming to improve self-esteem, promote team work and develop collegiality. The educate pillar aims to contribute to improved health and well-being of students and long-term educational and employment outcomes.
Since 2017 we have focussed our Diamond Spirit program on Far North Queensland to ensure a sustainable model is developed, refined and researched before expanding the program further. Communities include Aurukun, Mapoon, Napranum and Yarrabah.
In 2018 we launched the educate pillar of Diamond Spirit at Cairns State High and Bremer State High, providing educational and mentoring support to 100 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from year 7 to 12.
Supporting material
One of the unique characteristics of Diamond Spirit educate has been the development of curriculum content that is embedded in existing school timetables. The four modules that the University of Queensland has developed are mapped to the Australian curriculum with a focus on emotional and cultural well-being. Netball is used as the vehicle to engage students in rich and meaningful conversations. Topics include:
Netball role models and me
Body positive
Healthy smiles for healthy Selfie
Promoting Indigenous culture and well-being through sport
The educate hubs also provide additional extracurricular activities to support cultural and emotional well-being including lunch time help hubs and weekly Powerful Young Women talks from prominent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. This provides a cultural connection for students and motivation to be the best they can be.
Strategic partnerships
Central to the success of Diamond Spirt is developing effective partnerships. The following partners have provided significant contribution to the initial success of Diamond Spirt over the past two years and will remain key partners in future program development:
June 2018 – Inaugural Indigenous round incorporating the first Diamond Spirit leadership camp
August 2018 – Partnership developed with University of Queensland to develop unique curriculum content
June 2019 2nd annual Diamond Spirit Leadership camp in conjunction with SSN Indigenous round
November 2019 – Partnership signed with the Institute Urban Indigenous Health (Deadly Choices) further enhancing our reach into Indigenous communities
November 2019 - Funding extension approved with Education Queensland and Dept Sport and Recreation to continue the Diamond Spirit program in 2020
Why we did it
In 2013, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs tabled its report on the inquiry into the contribution of sport to Indigenous well-being and mentoring.
Titled Sport – More than Just A Game, this report clearly identified the need for programs that focus on the engagement of Indigenous women and that address the cultural and gender barriers which lead to significantly lower participation rates.
The committee stated that it was concerned with “the gender imbalance for participation in sports within the Indigenous communities”. The committee encouraged “all sporting groups and organisations to assess what can be done to improve the participation of Indigenous women in sport”.
Honorary Visiting Fellow at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, Professor Colin Tatz also emphasised his concern with this disparity of funds being spent on Indigenous men and women in sport telling the committee in the public hearings phase:
there is gross disparity not only in the minds of sporting bodies but in the minds of Aboriginal communities that sport is for men and it is the footy that is the big deal, not the netball, not the basketball, not the hockey and the various other games that women can participate in.
To that end, Netball Queensland through the Diamond Spirit is committed to striving towards genuine change. The program’s guiding principles outline our mission to transform lives through netball.
We developed the program after significant consultation which identified gaps in programs specifically targeting women and girls and gross disparity in funding.
How we know it's working
Program Outcomes
Our Diamond Spirit Educate Hubs continued to evolve and in 2019 we were excited to receive positive feedback from Education Queensland following an external review of Indigenous program for girls. Diamond Spirit ranked highly in the areas of school attendance, behavioural and academic outcomes, resulting in +7.7% school attendance, 17.5% improvement in behavioural absences and 4.4% improvement in academic outcomes (student receiving a C or better).
We also partnered with the University of Queensland to develop unique curriculum content which focusses on social, emotional and cultural wellbeing and currently embarking on further research and a Youth Ambassador Program which will engage our youth in future program design.
Our community engagement has created more opportunities for players entering the Netball Queensland performance pathways with +4% growth in players attending our emerging talent program to 7.9% in 2019 and our overall grassroot participation rates continue to show steady growth.
In 2019 we increased the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees in the Diamond Spirit program and appointed our first Torres Strait Islander teacher into the Educate Hub at Bremer State High.
Student reflection about being a Diamond Spirit student 2019 – Cairns State High
I am engaged with improving myself, bettering my education and achieving my goals. This year I have had more self-control in class and have not disrupted other people, this has caused me to be more engaged in learning
I feel that I have become in more control of my friendships, personality and own life this year, particularly in the area of my studying, organisation and preparation
The one thing Diamond Spirit has helped me with, is to gain a successful work pathway with traineeship. Diamond Spirit has supported me with getting the modules done,
the past two terms I have attended school more frequently. I have felt empowered, being able to get help for school and my mental health and being surrounded with good female
Program outputs
2500 students from 7 remote communities have experience regular netball opportunities
2 educate hubs launched with 100 students provided additional mentoring and education support
28 students and 8 teachers attended the Diamond Spirit leadership camps
150 students attended the Weipa multi-sport carnival over the past 2 years
55 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander coaches achieved foundation coach accreditation
25 PCYC sport and recreation officers attended umpire development workshops
26 students from Cairns State High School attended the Diamond Spirit camp at Echo Creek, Tully
10 students from Cairns State High attended the Constellation Cup between Australia and New Zealand
5 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been employed in various part-time and full-time roles
4 x learning modules developed by University of Queensland for the 2019 educate programs
