'Count Me In'
This project's parent organization is The Jack Brockhoff Child Health and Wellbeing Program, The University of Melbourne
It operates in Australia
It uses Multiple sports
Entered the Sport for Equality Award
More about 'Count Me In'
The Count Me In program has been designed to address the identified barriers to sports participation by Culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) migrant and refugee-background young people and facilitate positive social connections for young people and their families through sports participation for social inclusion. Three distinct models of participation were identified from an initial exploratory study completed in 2015:
Short term programs (often 6-10 weeks) for refugee-background children
Ongoing programs specifically for refugee-background children and youth
Integration of refugee and migrant youth into mainstream clubs
While not all refugee and migrant young people want to participate in mainstream clubs, this study found that a substantial number would like to but did not feel they had this opportunity. The latter model offers the greatest potential in terms of broad social as well as physical and mental health benefits but can also be the most challenging to implement and sustain.