What We Do What We Do at Onside

Onside with the Mariners used football as a force for good.

Onside With The Mariners is a program designed to challenge societal expectations around relationships, masculinity and femininity by engaging directly with young people.

By addressing these ideas early, the program aims to minimise harm and reduce gendered violence within the community.

With the Central Coast consistently recording some of the highest rates of domestic violence in New South Wales, the program is being rolled out locally as a pilot, with the ambition to deliver Onside across schools throughout the Central Coast — ensuring more young people have access to education that supports respectful, healthy relationships.

Our Programs

Football-Based Workshops

Delivered in partnership with the Central Coast Mariners, our programs use football as a natural entry point for meaningful learning around teamwork, communication, emotions and respect. By engaging students through football activities and on-field scenarios, conversations feel relatable, practical and grounded in experiences they already understand.

Our workshops connect behaviours on the pitch with behaviours off it — helping students recognise boundaries, manage emotions and understand the impact of their actions on others. Football provides a shared language that makes these discussions engaging, inclusive and easy to connect to everyday life.

The sessions align with school wellbeing frameworks and focus on early intervention — supporting young people before negative behaviours become habits. Programs can be delivered as one-off football workshops or as a series of sessions, depending on the needs of each school community.

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Classroom Sessions

Our classroom sessions focus on bringing students together in a shared environment using multimedia sessions. This aspect of our program explores with young people what the drivers of domestic violence are in a safe and inclusive environment. 

We focus on learning the foundations of healthy relationships—how to identify, build, and maintain them. Our focus on early intervention and prevention ensures we are bringing young people on the journey of what respect, boundaries, and healthy relationships look like. 

We ensure our classroom sessions detail all pathways to support so our participants know that there is always help available and they are supported throughout

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Peer Mentorships

We deliver peer mentorship programs designed to support younger students and inspire older students to model behaviours. This approach ensures that we are teaching older students vital leadership skills as they learn to lead conversations and empathy and support as they provide one on one mentorship to those younger.

This approach is the building block for breaking patterns around domestic violence and unhealthy relationships as our older students become advocates for respectful behaviors in their school communities.

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Community Events

We deliver community-based events that bring people together through connection, conversation and shared experience. These events are designed to create safe, inclusive community spaces where young people and community members can explore respect, healthy relationships and looking out for one another.

In order to strengthen connection and visibility through the community, we run a variety of events such as Charity rounds to come together as we share a passion for sport, family days to further strengthen our bonds and connections as neighbours, along with tournaments and school events - always ensuring our youth are our primary focus.

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Parental Involvement

We are committed to our practises and efforts both on the pitch and in classroom translating to your family life. We want to ensure parents are fully supported to follow these initiatives and reinforce learning within the home.

We do this through a multitude of resources for parents to avail of as well as optional workshops to help parents elevate the onside mission to your day to day life as a family.

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Our Goals

91%

increase in attendance

76%

of students now have the tools to better look after their mental health

71%

of students understand that help is available to them and their peers

62%

of students display an understanding of self care and steps to look after their mental health

83%

of students can articulate how to set SMART goals, + 23% actively working on goals after finishing the program

Testimonials

“Sport is not just about who can score the most goals, it’s about bringing the community together and instilling important values of respect in our young people. Our athletes are role models for many and it’s fantastic to see the Mariners using their platform to deliver such a vital program.”

– Steve Kamper, Minister of Sport

“Central Coast youth are stepping up as leaders. This program will help them grow into the role models our community needs — on and off the field. We’re giving our young people the tools they need to build a safer, more inclusive community, starting right here with the Onside with the Mariners program.”

– Rose Jackson, Minister for Youth

“In the Onside program, we got to be in the classroom and learn about things like respecting boundaries and having healthy relationships — then we went out onto the field and actually used it in a game.”

– Student Participant

“The whole point of the program is taking what kids learn in the classroom and bringing it out onto the field — using football as a force for good. Boys and girls train together, play together, and learn to respect each other in how they communicate, how they set up drills, and how they compete. It’s something genuinely different in Australia, and it’s what the Mariners are so excited to bring to life.”

– Brent Richardson

Support Hotlines

Emergency – Police or Ambulance dial 000

1800RESPECT – National Sexual, Domestic
& Family Violence Counselling Service (1800 737 732)

NSW Domestic Violence Line – 1800 65 64 63

Lifeline – 13 11 14