Bernie Shakeshaft’s BackTrack program is making a difference – and critical to its success has been teaching at-risk kids how to train working dogs.
Bernie Shakeshaft – a former dingo tracker and jackeroo – knew he was onto something when he smuggled a litter of border collie pups into hisclass. “That was the first time I saw wild kids and feral pups sitting quietly together,” he says. “It was just magic stuff.”
He was supposed to get them through the academic year, but he realised the course, which ran for a year, was not enough. So, he decided to do “whatever it takes for as long as it takes” to help these kids, some of whom were homeless, and keep them out of jail., a youth education and training program housed in an old shed on the outskirts of town donated by the local council. Unlike other programs, it doesn’t have an end date – kids can stay in the program for as long as they need to.
Shakeshaft’s warm, no-nonsense style and impressive results in keeping kids out of detention centres have attracted supporters including Geoff Wilson’s Future Generation, The Chappell Foundation and Charter Hall chair. The local police drop in to order coffees from BackTrack kids honing their barista skills and some are even helping them get their driver’s licence.
In year 11 on a school trip to India, he met Mother Teresa and worked in her hospice for the dying. He quit school but eventually finished his HSC at TAFE aged 20 before working on stations in the Northern Territory. There, he found a job attaching radio trackers to dingoes for research. He later became a TAFE teacher, which was what led to his real calling.More than 1000 kids have been through the BackTrack program.
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