Central Australian Link Up Service provides online information on their projects through Tangentyere Council Website

Mission

The CAYLUS mission is to support community initiatives that improve quality of life and address substance misuse affecting young people.

History

CAYLUS started as a petrol sniffing prevention project in November 2002 from funding committed by the Howard government in response to a series of articles about petrol sniffing by the journalist Paul Toohey in The Australian. In its early years the program employed two community development workers and a caseworker. The staff initially worked across 12 communities, supporting the development of a wide range of regionally and locally targeted petrol sniffing interventions. Program workers had good access to government decision makers, as well as a pool of funds to directly resource interventions. The program workers also had the good will of families and decision makers in many of the communities, as they had lived and worked across these communities for extended periods in other roles.

CAYLUS supported interventions have included rehabilitation projects, youth programs, a responsible retail of solvents program, night patrols, policing initiatives, football carnivals, video and radio projects and more. Whilst many supply-reduction measures specifically targeted inhalants, the demand-reduction measures such as development of community-based recreation and youth programs have had a myriad of other health, substance misuse prevention and community safety outcomes.

Staff initially promoted use of aviation gas as a non-sniffable fuel, along with promoting the use of the Misuse of Drugs Act (NT) to prevent dealing. The workers offered a hotline service whereby community members were able to dob in dealers of petrol, 12 dealers were reported to police in this way in the first few months of the service.