Senior Sergeant Col Henderson of the Mount Isa Police said the project takes a group of teenagers on a 20-week program to improve their educational and emotional engagement. 

“It is a mentor situation, where they have a mentor who works with them, we get them involved in the community again,” Senior Sergeant Henderson said. 

“They [Project Booyah] has had lots of good achievements in other regions, so hopefully we have some good outcomes with it here as well.”

Project Booyah State Coordinator Detective Senior Sergeant Ian Frame the project resulted in a drop in severe crime. 

“We’re actually doing an evaluation with Griffith University, and we’re finding that their attitudes towards criminal acts are dramatically reducing post-program,” he said. 

Detective Senior Sergeant Frame said the project involves educational training, as well as emotional training. 

“We work to give them vocational pathways and also mentor them to hopefully build up their self esteem and give them have a little bit of self worth so that they can contribute to their local community,” Detective Senior Sergeant Frame said. 

Education Queensland takes the youths through literacy and numeracy essentials. 

“We also put them through a Cert I in hospitality which is a good interactive environment for them to have a feel for what it is to be educated in an adult learning environment,” Detective Senior Sergeant Frame said. 

“Hopefully they get a taste for further opportunities through the post-programs that we run where we put the kids through other cert qualifications, apprenticeships, traineeships, or find work placement for these youths.” 

Out of the 265 young people who have entered the program, 220 have graduated with over sixty per cent finding employment and seventy-five per cent pursuing further education. 

Project Booyah will roll out in Mount Isa later this year.