The uptake of BRAKE by secondary schools across Queensland is amazing.  We now have over forty schools in these areas:  Logan, Ipswich, Scenic Rim, Brisbane, Redlands, Sunshine Coast, Rockhampton, Gladstone and the Central highlands & Coalfields.

We are just so happy to help as many schools, young people, families and communities as we can and are overjoyed with this uptake.

Such an amazing uptake has presented us with funding issues as we are a not for profit organisation and most of us are volunteers.  We also provide BRAKE FREE to all schools and students, which includes all materials, resources, in-service training, support, IT support, ongoing student contact and follow-up as well as the parents/carers program. 

This has also presented some very difficult decisions for us in that we are unable to provide the program to some schools in areas where we cannot provide support due to lack of funds.  This is extremely difficult for us to do as we know the program works, but we just cannot take on communities and schools where we cannot provide the program in its entirety to ensure quality assurance.  We undergo a lot of soul searching each time and it is very, very difficult for all of us at BRAKE.

We are desperately in need of sponsorship and/or assistance and community participation in these areas where schools are delivering BRAKE to their students to ensure that BRAKE continues to be free of charge and available to as many young people and families in those communities as possible.  We also need sponsorship and/or assistance from communities to enable us to offer BRAKE to those communities that we just cannot afford to assist at the present time.

Due to such an uptake and the support we provide we need to put coordinators in place in each area to ensure we provide as much assistance as possible and that the quality of the program remain at high levels.  We are dealing with young people’s welfare and we cannot let the quality drop in any way.  We need to be able to pay coordinators for their time as they need to be able make a living, so to speak.  Many of us at BRAKE are volunteers and receive no remuneration in anyway, others receive minimal remuneration - but continue to donate many hours as volunteers beyond those paid hours. 

We have wonderful people in BRAKE and we are so lucky to have them-but we want to retain them and have even more of them - but we need help.

So we ask - SAVE A LIFE TODAY, please help our young people stay safe on our roads.  You never know - it may just be one of your loved ones that you save.