22nd November, 2005

DAVID ADAMS

We’re only a few days into the Schoolies Week season across Australia and already the headlines have started to flow with talk of binge drinking, uncontrollable partying and allegations of bashings and sexual offences.

What many who read the headlines don’t know is that behind the scenes, like every year since the late 1990s, teams of Christian “hotel chaplains” are out among the thousands of high school leavers flocking to coastal resorts around the country, offering support, advice and those ubiquitous red frogs.

HIGH PROFILE SUPPORT: Hotel Chaplaincy founder Andy Gourley (middle) with two of the organisation's supporters - rugby player Jason Stevens (left) and former AFL player Shaun Hart (right).   “We went through about 80 kilos of red frogs in that year and from there it’s grown to 17 locations around Australia with about 1,200 workers going through about 4.2 tonnes of red frogs,” says Andy Gourley.

Andy Gourley, who founded schoolies support network Hotel Chaplaincy in 1997, says he first became involved in helping out at schoolies when working with youth through his church, Citipointe Church in Brisbane, running skateboard safari clubs for young people.

“When those skaters reached schoolies age, they all headed down to the Gold Coast and from there I saw the need for some sober people to be around during Schoolies Week, helping out young people. So it basically started from there.”

The first team involved 17 people working in a couple of buildings, handing out red frogs to make a connection with the school leavers they encountered.

“We went through about 80 kilos of red frogs in that year and from there it’s grown to 17 locations around Australia with about 1,200 workers going through about 4.2 tonnes of red frogs,” says Gourley.

This year the chaplains, who must all undergo pastoral and police checks and actually pay to take part, will be at sites ranging from the Gold Coast through to Lorne and Torquay in Victoria, Victor Harbour in South Australia and Rottnest Island and Dunsborough in the west over the schoolies period (which differs from one state to the next and in some states involves more than a single week).

Chaplains have already spent the last few months visiting schools across the country to hand out red frogs and talk about the support they can offer at schoolies locations.

The bulk of the volunteer chaplains are aged between 18 and 25 and come from across the spectrum of Christian denominations and a variety of professions including chaplaincy and youth work.

As well as acting as a referral network, they also carry out mediation work between premises’ managers and the school leavers, liaise with police and other emergency services and generally provide the leavers with some positive role models.

“It provides an anti-culture, to give young people an out from the pressure to go too hard over that time,” says Gourley.

He says the response from the school leavers has been amazing with one illustration of that being the 819 calls schoolies made to the Red Frog Hotline last year.

“It’s just bizarre to think that some of the most popular crew at schoolies are the Christian workers. That just doesn’t make sense in a lot of world views but it’s true - the young people love them and they can’t get enough of them.”

The response from authorities including local councils has also been positive (in fact in 2003, Gourley won a Local Hero Australian of the Year Award for Queensland for his work with Hotel Chaplaincy).

“It’s been amazingly successful in so far as local and state governments go and also local agencies, particularly police - an area they’ve never really been able access is in the accommodation houses themselves where a lot of the issues can come from,” says Gourley.

Some local governments have even started to help financially support Hotel Chaplaincy which is otherwise funded by church contributions and private donations from businesses and individuals. The organisation also has some high profile support with the likes of retired AFL footballer Shaun Hart and rugby players Jason Stevens and Steve Kefu standing behind it.

Gourley, now 35, went to schoolies week on the Gold Coast himself in 1986 and 1987.

“I had a great time,” he says. “It was pretty wild though, back in the Eighties and there were no support networks back then...But it’s really good to see now the policing effort and all the support and the activities. I think it would have been a great thing back in those days if we’d had that.”

Casey Mulder, 21, has worked at Schoolies Week for four years and is now responsible for co-ordinating the 120 people working at all four Western Australian sites - including Dunsborough, Rottnest Island, Busselton and Margaret River - during Schoolies Week (which, in Western Australia, actually runs from this Thursday until 3rd December).

They will be working in teams of a minimum of four people with the specific brief of working either on the streets or at parties in private accommodation.

“For me, it’s been a brilliant opportunity first of all to see...God develop my own leadership abilities but also just to see the impact that this one agency has on tens of thousands of young people is pretty phenomenal,” she says.

Mulder says all the work is relational, meaning that it’s through one-on-one conversations that the group is able to speak into the lives of school leavers.

“It’s just been incredible to see that happen,” she says. “There’s so many situations that I know worked out well just because of what God was doing through us.”

She remembers, for example, one time on a beach when she spotted a guy who had his hands all over an drunk girl.

“I just took it upon myself not to let that happen for her - and for him because he hardly knew what he was doing either,” she says. “So I really prayed and said ‘God, I don’t know what to do here but I know that you’re going to show me.

“I actually ended up saying to him, ‘Hey mate, what’s your name?’ And he told me and I said ‘Look, I want you to do something for me’ and he was quite perplexed and I said ‘I want you to get up and leave her alone...At that stage, I think I was 19 and a girl and he was this tall leaver who could easily intimidate me but God just used that and he went ‘Oh, OK and left her.”

And as for why the red frogs? Gourley says they tried a number of different food options as an icebreaker but in the end it was red frogs which proved the most successful.

“Everyone loves red frogs,” he says.

• To find out more, visit www.redfrogs.com.au

• Schoolies can call the Red Frog hotline on 1300 557 123.