YBMenSport: An Adaption of a Wellbeing Program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Boys and Young Males Through Sport

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males, including teen and younger adult Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males, who are the participants of the project described in this research, have been described as having the worst health and social statistics in Australia.1 2 3 It has been argued that much of these issues are closely aligned with the socioeconomic and cultural milieu into which these young males are born.3 Despite inequities such as these, efforts to improve the health and wellbeing of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males have been limited. Few health promotion programs have been specifically designed to meet this population’s circumstances, preferences, beliefs, experiences, and needs, and even fewer have adopted important co-design processes during their development and implementation.1 4 5

The paucity of positive male role models has been identified as a particular area of focus that can have encouraging outcomes for the social and cultural wellbeing of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males.6 This project is an adaptation of an existing program that has been implemented successfully in the US designed for Young Black Men known as YBMen and then adapted for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men in the Northern Territory (YBMenNT). The program that we intend to adapt and develop will be known as YBMenSport. CI Drummond, Smith, Petersen and Opozda, on this YBMenSport research application, are currently involved in the YBMenNT project and are seeking to explore how this can be adapted for different, and specific, settings. As an important social and cultural setting, sport provides a unique looking glass through which we can explore young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males and how they can develop culturally connected attitudes and behaviours that lend themselves towards being aspirational young men. Noteworthy, a recent systematic review of the impact of sport and physical activity programs on the mental health and social and emotional wellbeing of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians 7 indicates that promising outcomes included increased connection to culture, self-esteem and confidence.

The adapted YBMenSport project will utilise the fundamental tenets of the YBMenNT program designed to promote wellbeing amongst young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males by “tapping into” contemporary ideals through a range of connecting modalities including social media. The adaptation within this research proposal, however, will focus on the role of sporting clubs and sport settings, as the primary conduit through which young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander males can assist in their development as young men and promote wellbeing through peer support and mentoring. Boys at Clontarf Academy at Christies Beach High School will be central to this project where there are currently 60 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander boys enrolled. Clontarf Foundation as a part of its mission statement “exists to improve the education, discipline, life skills, self-esteem and employment prospects of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men and by doing so equips them to participate meaningfully in society”. The sporting sites will be centred around the South Adelaide Football Club which has now become an important Flinders University business and research partner. Noteworthy, not all boys are interested in football and therefore the project will engage the Onkaparinga council as a partner to assist in providing alternative sporting and leisure-based activities for the young males. The research team have a close working relationship with the Onkaparinga council through another project that evaluates the role of sporting sites within the lives of low socioeconomic status (SES) children in the Christies Beach area. These three key organisations will create a synergistic research environment to assist in the outcomes of the of the YBMenSport project.