To kick, handball and mark like an AFL player takes years of practice.

But where can kids turn if they want to lead like an AFL Captain?

Jamin Heppell is making inroads and bringing new purpose to youth leadership through his work with Game Changers Australia.

The not-for-profit social enterprise was born out of Jamin’s own experiences from his days playing junior football.

At 16, and captain of his local footy club, Jamin was disappointed with the lack of support and leadership offered to him and disenchanted by the lack of social awareness exhibited by some of his teammates.

Heppell worked closely with the YMCA through both his teenage years and then later in his University days to develop a program that would teach kids about the importance of arming sporting clubs with an inclusive and empowering culture. 

“We work with young leaders of grassroots clubs to help them identify their leadership capabilities, build upon those and ultimately take those back to their Club to create a more inclusive culture,” Heppell said.

“Also, as they grow up to become senior leaders, role modeling that for young guys that look up to them in the future.”

The Essendon Football Club was happy to support Game Changers and their work, with the group recently holding one of their leadership camps at the Club’s facilities.

Working closely with the Essendon District Football League and Riddell District Football League earlier in the month, Game Changers were able to teach the up and coming local leaders the skills required to become role models for their teammates.

“Specifically, we’re working with the Captains of local under 16 football teams from both mens and womens teams,” Heppell said.

“These kids are the young leaders of those local Clubs.”

Essendon Community Programs Manager Bernard Shepheard, said the work Game Changers were doing  aligned with  the existing work the Bombers had done with youth in the comminuty.

“We identified it as something as we wanted to make more purposeful with being inline with our overall Club strategy of developing young future leaders within the community,” Shepheard said.

“We partnered up with Game Changers because that’s exactly what they do. 

“We wanted to bring in the young leaders and young people from our region to give them that experience.”

Game Changers long term goal is to change some of the narrative around what it means to be a leader.

They hope by enstilling the right knowledge in those future leaders, the path will change for the better.

“For a lot of these guys it’s the first time that they’ve been introduced to leadership from a more holistic level,” Heppell said. 

“It’s about looking at how does leadership play out on the field, but also how does leadership play out in life. 

“This is an opportunity to bridge those two and have them identify where these skills overlap.

“Ultimately, it enables them to take the skills they develop through sport and translate them to life outside of sport as well.”

You can find out more about the work that Game Changers do by visiting their website.