Dunk Me If You Can Teams of Police and Bentley Park Students at the Edmonton PCYC
Edmonton PCYC is on a winner after launching the Dunk Me If You Can Program at the Edmonton Leisure Centre yesterday.
The program has been designed specifically to foster stronger connections between the Bentley Park College indigenous students and the Queensland Police Service.
By using sport as the driver, officers took time out today to mentor year 9 and 10 students and started to build the foundations for a meaningful and sustainable relationship between Police and local young people.
Today’s program involved mentoring sessions and a number of other activities throughout the day and ended with an epic game of basketball.
The students from Bentley Park College battled it out with local police. The first half was all the police, which is understandable, we had Constable Aaron Grabau on our team.
Half time saw the coppers reaching for the water and a breather, whilst the students lined up and practised baskets. Aaron took a few minutes to rally the students. He gave them a pep talk along with a few pointers before they returned to the court for the second half.
Constable Aaron Grabau giving the students some valuable tips prior to more on court action
It was at this time the coppers started to sweat as Aaron ditched his grey shirt and changed teams.
The kids came out firing and scored a number of baskets in quick succession. It wasn’t looking so good for the cops when Senior Sergeant Jason Smith hobbled off the court with what appeared to be a game changing injury.
Police team were all smiles
The kids had momentum however the coppers rallied and sealed the game with a 43-28 victory.
PCYC Youth Club Co-ordinator, Acting Senior Sergeant Steve Pattono explained the Dunk Me If You Can Program was a variation of a similar program, Catch Me If You Can, which used football as a team building exercise.
“Whilst we don’t have the football fields here, we do have these beautiful basketball courts so we decided to develop the program to include basketball,” Acting Senior Sergeant Pattono said.
“These kids have been identified through their school for a number of reasons and the idea behind this program is to foster better relationships between police and young people.
“Sport brings people together in different ways and fosters that teamwork. The program helps to break down barriers and involves team building workshops, questionaires to break down the barriers and a friendly basketball game.
“The hope is that these kids will see police in a different light and instead of coming here to the PCYC, they know me as Sergeant Steve, out on the street, they’ll be able to come up to me and say ‘Gidday Steve’.
“This program has been successful in the past with Cairns identifying a couple of kids as having potential leadership qualities. PCYC’s have a statewide Youth Leadership Program so we’ve sent some kids down to the three tiered program.
“These kids aren’t bad kids, we just trying to change some of their behaviours, but we just want to change that perspective between police and young people.
The students also enjoyed the opportunity to engage with the local police and learn more from them.
Elza
Elza Lowah and Stanicko Marama both gave the Dunk Me If You Can Program the thumbs up.
“I got to have a really good talk to one of the police officers by the name of Jason,” Elza said.
“It’s been really good. We’ve been encouraged to be confident and give things a go. The game was a bit hard because of the different age groups, but we all went out there and gave it a go which was good. Nobody was scared or anything.”
When asked about the quality of their competition Stanicko Marama explained it was tough playing against retired Taipan, Constable Aaron Grabau.
“He’s a very hard player, and so tall too. I felt very comfortable talking to the police and I felt like I could connect with them,” Stanicko said.
Stan
“The game was really hard today. We were up against a bunch of older people.”
Once the game was over, it was time for the Cairns TAFE Students to take on the Bentley Park Team for another hit out.
Shawn Doake from Cairns TAFE encouraged youngsters to get active.
“I can’t say it enough, we need kids to get out and be active. Just give it a go,” Mr Doake said.
With the success of yesterday’s Dunk Me If You Can Program, the officers are expected to regroup to ice sore muscles and prepare for the next tough encounter with the Bentley Park Students.
“Whilst we’ve got the size, they’ve got the speed and agility,” Acting Senior Sergeant Pattono said.
I’m predicting a tough match in two weeks time as Stanicko warned his team would be ready.
For more information about the Edmonton PCYC Facilities click here
Dunk me if you Can at Edmonton PCYC
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