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10 May 2010
Souths Cares Ambassador and former South Sydney Rabbitohs centre Nigel Vagana has spearheaded a program called Respectful Relationships targeted at the next group of stars in the NRL, starting with the South Sydney Rabbitohs.
Players from the Rabbitohs Toyota Cup and SG Ball sides have recently completed a six-week program based around decision making in the areas of social and sexual ethics and morals.
Players involved were Toyota Cup captain Nathan Peats and his team mates Jake Shearer, Matt Mundine, Adam Reynolds, Blake Judd and Jacob Nansen; as well as SG Ball players Jack Lee-Hang, Adrian Haangana, Arnold Woulf, Aaron OBrien, Jack OBrien, Norbert Horvath, Blake Matthews and Kyle Turner.
The program was delivered by Nigel Vagana and Dr Cliff Evers from the University of NSW, and was developed by Professor Moira Carmody from the University of Western Sydney.
Souths Cares General Manager John Hutchinson said he spoke with Nigel about the program in 2009, after it was trialled with the Gold Coast Titans and Brisbane Broncos.
Nigel explained to me that the program was designed to give the players guidelines in decision making, considering they will face unusual social situations as they move up the ranks, Mr Hutchinson said.
The Respectful Relationships program is a six-week program that has been running at Souths Juniors. Theyve been kind enough to give Nigel space to conduct the sessions which has been very valuable.
Mr Hutchinson says the program puts the spotlight on the players and how they would react in certain situations.
The players are put into scenarios and the program investigates their values and beliefs, all in a safe environment, Mr Hutchinson explained.
One of the benefits I see is that it is a vehicle for cultural change in the game.
We want our under 18s players to understand the Clubs culture and understand our commitment to our community and our Members. Its also about incidental relationship building as the current crop of SG Ball players will be team mates of the Toyota Cup players in the not too distant future.
Mr Hutchinson says he believes the program could be beneficial on a broader scale.
Dr Evers will provide Souths Cares, Souths Juniors and the NRL with a report from his evaluations and I believe it is something that could be expanded to all NRL Clubs, Mr Hutchinson said.
Nigel Vagana has championed this project as part of his role as Souths Cares Ambassador.
The Titans and Broncos had first grade players trained to deliver the program to the younger players, but Nigel wanted to deliver the program himself to young players from his former Club.
Mr Vagana says the Rabbitohs were the first to step up in NSW and take part in the program.
Some professors developed the program around ethical behaviour, attitudes towards women and respectful relationships. We trialled it last year with the Titans and the Broncos as part of the NRLs Playing By the Rules program and we trained some of the first graders to deliver the program to their under 18s. We found it was really successful and Souths put their hand up to be the first team in NSW to be involved and here we are now completing the delivery of the program, Mr Vagana said.
The Souths boys have been great, really fantastic. We did their evaluations last night and a lot of them commented on how easy it was.
We use a lot of scenarios and role plays to help teach them ways of making ethical decisions. I guess I can relate to them a bit more because Ive been in their shoes.
Using his experiences as a first grade player over 13 seasons, Mr Vagana has found his time at the Warriors, Bulldogs, Sharks and Rabbitohs; coupled with his international experience with New Zealand and Samoa; has helped to perform both his role as Souths Cares Ambassador and Education and Welfare Officer for the NRL.
This is part of what I do with Souths Cares and Ive found it to be really rewarding and really successful, Mr Vagana said.
This program has been a big part of my projects with Souths Cares. I work with Hutcho (John Hutchinson) on a number of projects and we have some cultural projects coming up.
Currently we are running a music program at Tempe High School, and we have lots of plans for more programs in the not-too-distant future.
I find this work with Souths Cares complements the work Im doing with the NRL. They both provide opportunities to help people and for me to grow as well.
The NRL are really happy with the work Im doing with Souths Cares, outside of the stuff I do with them.
Two of the players involved in the Respectful Relationships program are Toyota Cup front-rower Jake Shearer and five-eighth Matt Mundine.
Shearer says he has enjoyed the program as it relates to the study he is doing at university, studying PE Teaching in his third year at the Australian College of Physical Education.
This is our sixth session as part of the Respectful Relationships program, Shearer said at Souths Juniors in May.
The whole thing is based around respectful relationships so just looking at different relationships and the respect between two people and how important communication is, and looking after the welfare of both yourself and the other person in the relationship.
The whole thing has been based around making ethical decisions with relationships and also in general life.
It includes relationships between friends or with a girlfriend, family, work, just anyone that you have a relationship with.
Its given us a framework to look at when making decisions based around relationships with whoever it might be.
Im doing PE teaching at ACPE so Id like to get involved in delivering the program. It would be good to get out there and do the program with Nigel for a few hundred kids and just help out, particularly the Harold Matthews and SG Ball squads at Souths.
Ive learned quite a bit from it and could use it for sure through work and to help out where I can.
I study similar stuff with my degree. Some of our subjects cover the sort of stuff weve been doing in these sessions.
Mundine says having Nigel work with them adds some gravitas to the messages being delivered.
I think this a really good thing, especially to help us realise when we could face a situation where we can get in trouble, Mundine said.
It gives us something to look at when were out and were making decisions about situations were in or could find ourselves in, so we can make the right decision.
(Nigel and Cliff) are really good to deal with. They explain things properly. Nigel has been there himself so he knows a lot about it and I think its really good that these two guys are doing it.
We do talk about it outside of these sessions as well. Even at training we can look back at the things weve learned in these sessions and use it when we need to.
The guys in the under 16s and 18s will find this really useful too because thats the age where theyre turning 18 and theyre going out and they need to learn this kind of stuff so they can stay out of trouble.
http://www.rabbitohs.com.au/News/Souths-Cares/Vagana-Helps-Build-Respectful-Relationships.html
