Lake Cargelligo is one of four Western NSW towns to receive funding to increase the BackTrack Network across the area. 

The BackTrack network, originally established in Armidale, was created to help vulnerable young people facing challenges connecting with the community, participating in education and training, and finding employment. 

Lake Cargelligo’s ‘Down the Track’ program is one extension of the successful initiative, helping local young people to find stability in their local town.

Down the Track CEO Lana Masterson said that with Lake Cargelligo’s reputation for disengaged youth, the program was born out of necessity. 

“Down the Track came about through community outrage, high crime rates, and anti-social behaviour,” Ms Masterson said. 

Despite the community attitude, locals took to the program fast, which now has around 40 kids involved and another 20 on the waiting list. 

The new funding, Ms Masterson says, will go directly to increasing the number of youth they can take on and the services they can offer. 

Currently, the program has a focus on connecting participants with employers in the agricultural industry. 

“Agriculture is one of the biggest employment streams out here so we do everything from fencing, shearing, lamb marking, tractors,” she said. 

The program has also founded their own enterprise in a food truck that caters for events and employs the program participants.

Ms Masterson said one of the biggest factors is allowing them to be immersed and engaged with the community. 

“Young people are more engaged in the community…we worked really hard on those relationships to build our young people’s networks in the community so that if they see someone down the street they can go ‘that's such and such from this place’ or ‘if I needed help with that I could go to them’.”

Just short of $1.5 million will be split between BackTrack programs in Dubbo, Moree, Lake Cargelligo and Broken Hill as part of the Safer Communities Fund, with the aim of providing early intervention in reducing youth crime and anti-social behaviour in these communities. 

Originally designed to target people who were unengaged and ‘falling through the cracks’, BackTrack has been involved with diverting young people from homelessness, substance use, psychological distress, juvenile crime, and unemployment. 

Founder Bernie Shakeshaft became renowned for the program following the story of the working dogs, who the young people could connect with, train to work and compete, and find support in. 

The funding will be delivered under the Safer Communities Fund which is aimed at delivering grass roots crime prevention initiatives.