SESSION OVERVIEW
What if the places where students already connect could become even more powerful spaces for building belonging, inclusion and safer communities?
Universities invest significant effort in campaigns, education and awareness initiatives to create respectful and inclusive environments. While these approaches remain essential, lasting cultural change is strengthened when students have opportunities to experience, practise and contribute to the values we seek to promote.
This session explores how UniSC’s Be That Teammate initiative expanded the role of sport as a setting for connection, belonging and culture-building. Through a partnership between Sport & Fitness and Safer Communities, the
initiative built on the strong sense of teamwork, community and identity already present within sporting environments by adding an intentional focus on inclusion, respectful relationships, active bystander behaviours and shared responsibility.
Using Be That Teammate as a case study, this interactive session will showcase how cross-functional collaboration can embed primary prevention and belonging into everyday student experiences. Attendees will explore how sport can provide authentic opportunities for students to engage with prevention messages, reflect on their role within a community and contribute to creating safer and more inclusive campus cultures.
Through practical examples, facilitated reflection and interactive discussion, participants will gain insights into how existing student experiences can be strengthened through purposeful partnerships and student-centred approaches.
Attendees will leave with practical strategies, partnership insights and adaptable ideas for embedding belonging, inclusion and primary prevention across sport, student leadership and engagement programs within their own Universities.
Session Outcomes:
- Discover how university sport departments can be strengthened as a setting for safe community building, belonging and connection.
- Explore how partnerships between areas such as Sport & Fitness and Safer Communities can support a whole-of-institution approach to primary prevention and respectful campus cultures.
- Experience an interactive approach that demonstrates how reflection, dialogue and shared responsibility can support positive team cultures and student engagement.
- Identify opportunities to embed belonging and prevention principles into existing student programs, communities and experiences.
- Leave with practical ideas and partnership strategies that can be adapted to strengthen student connection, inclusion and safety within their own institutions.
PRESENTER
Carly Hoey is a Safe and Respectful Campuses Advisor at the University of the Sunshine Coast, where she works as part of a small team to prevent gender-based violence and other harmful behaviours by creating safer, more connected campus communities. She is passionate about the belief that belonging is a powerful protective factor and that the everyday experiences students have on campus can shape how connected, supported and safe they feel.
Carly enjoys bringing people together through practical, strengths-based initiatives that foster inclusion, encourage positive peer cultures and build a shared sense of community. Her work focuses on moving beyond awareness to create meaningful opportunities for students to connect, look out for one another and help make respect everyone’s responsibility.