Swans Elevate program a great success in Roebourne

The Swan Districts Football Club has made a big focus to be about much more than what happens on the oval and Jimmy Westbrook is at the forefront of that in Roebourne, and having a positive community impact is what matters more than anything.

While ultimately what the general public might judge Swan Districts on is what happens on the WAFL or WAFLW football field, the club has a significantly broader focus away from football and that's where the Social Impact team is so crucial throughout Western Australia.

That includes Westbrook who heads up the team in Roebourne, and having grown up in the community, he couldn’t be prouder to be back there now and trying to have as significant an impact as he can on helping the youth of the community have the best chance at happy and successful lives.

Bigger picture for how the program looks

Above everything else, what Westbrook sees as success in the program in Roebourne is that it is helping the young people be involved in things that are positive, and helping put them in a position once they finish school to chase whatever dreams they have.

That's different for every individual he comes into contact with, but he already feels like things can be deemed a success and he hopes to see it only continue to grow, and flourish.

"I believe we're achieving our short-term goals right now and I believe the program is a success. I believe what we do as a club is a success on and off the field so for me to look forward, we've got some pretty exciting things on the cusp of being released," Westbrook said.

"So for me it's about what I can achieve and what's the capacity of my team, and what's the positive impact I can make on the community.

"The best thing about that community is that they will guide us and the weather will tell us what we can do, and so will the facilities we have access to. The important thing is that the kids keep rocking up, keep engaging in what we're doing and that's a success.

"We have targeted stuff that we are working on with specific individuals and to see those come to fruition, that would be a success and if I am getting kids out on the park or on a basketball court or in a water polo pool, just having them being kids again and having a smile is what I would deem a success.

"Having that positive impact on the community is what matters more than anything in what we're doing."

Overview of the program

To sum up what the program Westbrook oversees is anything but an easy task because it's always changing and evolving, and in fairness it can change from each individual based on their needs, wants and aspirations.

However, basically it all starts within Roebourne Districts High School and all flows on from there.

"Currently our program delivers sessions inside Roebourne District High School and we deliver a class for each group based on what we deliver locally down in Perth," Westbrook said.

"On top of that, we deliver school-based projects and there's one around graphic design which includes a lot of sticker making and sign writing. There's also one around the fundamentals of barista, another around bike mechanics and a cooking program.

"It's all based around fundamental skills and getting our young people to just gain exposure basically to things you need in life, and then to find interests and whatever they don’t like based on that.

"Then from there they can build towards TAFE accreditations, work placements or basically just trying to help them get into other interest-based projects to help their futures."

What does success look like

Because of the diversity of the community in Roebourne and that every individual Westbrook works with has different visions of what they want to be part of, it's not always easy to know what success looks like.

But ultimately, what is a success is having the young people in the region want to be part of what the program is doing in one form or another.

"For me it's about giving the kids an opportunity to try something new. The kids that might say no to going to try something usually, for them to say yes is probably what drives me to do what we do," Westbrook said.

"If they say yes to trying something new, it means that we've built an environment where they feel comfortable enough to trust us enough to want to be part of it.

"To be able to build an environment like that where it doesn’t matter where or what we're doing, it's the fact that they are doing it with us and want to give it a go or come and have a look. That's the driver for us and we've got a lot of success stories over the last few years."

Driving program a shining success

In the big picture, the driving program that Westbrook has helped to overhaul over the past three years to give the young people the best chance to successfully end up with their license is just one example of the positive impact it is having in the community.

"We have a big passion around the independence portfolio which is about getting our young people to be able to employed," Westbrook added.

"That means helping them get tax file numbers, ID documents, bank account details and all those things they need.

"When they start with us we start building a scrapbook where we collect their documents to do things like get them ready to get their driver's license and we've partnered with a local Aboriginal corporation who offers that service.

"We've got all these things getting collected and the driving program includes coming to the school driving lessons each week.

"From watching our kids grow over the last three years that I've been doing this, we've gone from having no driving lessons in school to having them once a week.

"We've now got to the point where we offer a driving mentor program for these kids because we realised that if they started when they were 16 and came once a week with no support, they wouldn’t be eligible for their license by the time they graduated if they missed lessons along the way for whatever reason," he added.

"So that wasn’t good enough for me and the program so now we have brokered mentors from the community to a program where the kids can come and do hours with a mentor, they go through the process with a driver instructor to make sure they are safe on the road, and then they build up the hours before trying to pass their practical test."

More than about just the football

While football isn’t part of the Swans Impact program that everyone wants to be part of, it does provide a tremendous partnership for Westbrook to build upon to help reward the young people who take part in his program to have the reward of playing the game.

That can also apply to any number of sports in the area and at the end of the day, if they are playing sport or being part of any of the programs or activities that he's helped to set up, it means they are taking part in something positive.

"We're a team whether it's footy, social impact, diversity inclusion. We're all one mob and while I don't get involved in footy as much as I can because there's local football clubs that do that, but what I do is bring the clubs together and we can do stuff to impact that space from a community point of view," Westbrook said.

"For me it's youth engagement, it's kids having fun and giving them something positive to do. I know if I've got 200 kids on the oval, that's 200 kids who aren’t involved with the youth justice system.

"There's been players in the past who have been identified from the talent staff and I link them in with those pathways, but my responsibility in a football sense ends there.

"I use football as a medium to be a positive aspect of their life and I don’t use it all the time just because not everyone is interested or if it's a 45 degree day, you naturally don't want to go out on the oval and run around.

"In general, being part in sports advocates a more positive lifestyle and keeps you occupied, engaged in the community and there are studies that show your mental health improves when you have regular commitments whatever they are."

Being involved on a personal level

Westbrook has a real connection to the Roebourne community as well having spent a lot of his youth there and now returning as a husband and new father so he has a genuine interest in doing what's best for the whole region and everyone there.

"The community that I live in is dynamic and I've got a lot of love for it. I grew up there as a kid so to go back 15 or 20 years later now with my own family so I've kinda gone full circle," Westbrook said.

"You get a bit of red dirt in you and you get drawn back to it. For me, to be able to operate in that community and to be accepted by the community is reward enough as it is.

"Working with the kids and everyone in the community to try and create these opportunities, and putting smiles on the faces and being asked to come back and do things again is really rewarding.

"The club doesn’t get enough praise for what they do and how they do things. We have some really exciting things on the horizon and we're starting to build a bit of momentum in what we're about and looking at the capacity of teams, and this program has really evolved over the last few years."