The twelve week Booyah Program has brought together eight people from troubled backgrounds in the North and is preparing them to enter the workforce and has a strong personal development aspect.

“Six weeks in Booyah has definitely proven to me that it's a great program,” PCYC Club Officer Senior Constable Ross McIvor said.

“To see the change in them from day one, in six weeks now they’re completely different people.”

Program participants are referred from a range of pathways.

“When they come to us they’re largely unemployable most of these guys. They don't have their literacy and numeracy, so many job these days you've got to have basic literacy and numeracy,” Mr McIvor said. 

The program takes a holistic approach to preparing participants for employment. As well as literacy and numeracy they are taught about employer expectations, social and emotional development, anger management and the program works on developing self-esteem and self-confidence. 

The boys talk through issues in a group setting and provide support for one another.

“For them that’s quite profound because they’ve grown up with people who just put them down and they put people down and it's all about bully or be bullied,” Mr McIvor said.

He said in the program they are treated with respect, which helps them realise their worth. 

“I think for them just being recognised as someone who has value is really important,” Mr McIvor said. 

A key facet of the program is taking the group on camps and to experience outdoor activities.

“My experience with the wilderness is it’s the best place for these boys to be,” Mr McIvor said.

He said the experience of being in the wild brought out child-like wonder in the participants. 

“All the facades and the hard exteriors fall away and you get to see the child underneath,” he said

Mr McIvor said the program is a chance for the boys to have some of the experiences they missed in childhood. 

“A lot of these guys have had to grow up really, really fast in difficult environments and they’ve never got to just relax and be boys,” he said.

The first year of the program has been funded by an equity bid through TAFE. Following this, it has secured just over $1 million in one-off funding to run the program across several locations. This takes the program to mid-2019, after which its future is no longer secure. 

“We need to have that ongoing funding beyond 2019 in order for it to succeed, and I’d hate for this to fall over like you see so many good programs do just because, you know, it's a flash in the pan and the one off funding doesn't last forever and then it falls over,” Mr McIvor said.