Australian Football is Victoria’s most popular sport and the ‘Fair Game - Respect Matters Program’ aims to capitalise on the unique capacity of the game to bring communities together to participate and organise across all social strata. Well administered clubs provide a lot more than healthy, enjoyable and safe recreations for their players and volunteers. They can also provide important leadership within local communities and develop important social, community and life skills. These benefits are maximised where clubs and their leaders understand these values and are trained to foster them through the administration of clubs that are safe and inclusive of women and girls, making them family friendly environments.

In 2006 the AFL introduced training for players at the elite level. In 2007, the AFL commissioned research by ARCSHS to:

• review and evaluate the success of relevant initiatives adopted by other sporting and/or professional bodies that have aimed to change or establish environments that promote women’s and girls’ safe participation;
• provide a national and international review of the current evidence base that can inform the development of programs in this area; and
• contribute to the existing evidence-base through holding a small number of consultations, forums and interviews that seek the views of women and girls on priority areas for establishing safe, supportive club environments.

The outcome of this project saw a practical, evidence based resource – an AFL Respect and Responsibility Toolkit, developed for use in community football clubs.

It is clear that a ‘one size fits all’ strategy for clubs to become safer and more inclusive places for women will not address the complexity of the issues that clubs face. Therefore, the interventions carried out for this project must be multi-faceted to allow clubs to target areas where there are problems and implement change strategies. The centrepiece of the project will be the Toolkit. The Toolkit consists of a core module for use by all participating clubs that will explain the context in which the ‘Fair Game - Respect Matters Program’ has been developed, takes them through a self-administered audit of their environment, and finishes with a planning questionnaire that enables them to target areas for change. This work will be connected to AFLV programs and resources from which clubs will be supported to develop strategies aimed at changing attitudes and implementing practical initiatives to ensure that they are providing a safe, inclusive environment for women and girls, and eliminating barriers to women’s full participation.