A Regional Sports Assembly, Sports Focus has been accepted as a Local Drug and Alcohol Team to create a community action plan for the town.

Sports Focus business manager Stuart Craig said it's not that Heathcote has an identified problem with drug use, but its setting means the organisation can work in a contained environment.

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The findings will be applied across central Victoria.

Sports Focus will create a community action plan for Heathcote, working with sporting clubs, Heathcote Health and Heathcote Safer Towns.

It's aiming to minimise harm caused by alcohol and other drugs by preventing people from using them.

Local Drug Action Teams support communities to prevent and reduce the harm caused by alcohol and other drugs.

The findings from Heathcote will be taken to apply to other central Victorian clubs, and even across the state.

Sports Focus has worked with clubs clubs to encourage responsible management of alcohol as part of its Clubs Taking Control program since 2015.

Alcohol is often the precursor to trying illicit substances, Mr Craig said.

Drugs may not be a big issue for many clubs. But as meeting places for people, they have the potential to become one.

The work has meant addressing 40-80 Football Netball Clubs, and about a dozen cricket clubs, within the region.

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It was 2015 that sporting clubs began to lose their innocence in Mr Craig's mind. It came with revelations that a metro sporting coach had supplied team members with methamphetamines to enhance their performance.

"Often sporting clubs had been used as a panacea to some of the social issues that affect our community, because sporting clubs are great for social cohesion, they teach people about leadership, discipline and respect," Mr Craig said.

"A sporting club in a regional area is very much a microcosm of the local community.

"Sport was started to be implicated to being a vehicle to this issue of illicit drugs, so we started Clubs Taking Control."

The program aims to prevent people taking drugs, rather than rehabilitate users. Sports Focus and Victoria Police work together to provide information, and to help the club develop a positive culture.

Its goal is to give young people a greater awareness of the damages drugs can cause.

Club culture can be critical to preventing young people getting involved with drugs.

Those taking drugs may not be addicted, rather seeking connection.

"Some people try illicit substances simply because they feel disconnected. Disconnected from their community, disconnected from their friends, their work, their sport," Mr Craig said.

"They gain gratification, self-confidence through the use of illicit substances, or in some cases alcohol."

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Working in Heathcote is an opportunity for Sports Focus to run their programs in a contained environment, and learn more.

All the town's sporting clubs will be involved, as well as Heathcote Health and the Safer Towns Working Group.

What they learn there, Sports Focus can then apply to other places in the region.

To be funded as a LDAT is a progression point for Sports Focus, Mr Craig said.

The results of their work can be hard to measure, but he's confident there's been change over the years.

"What we can say is that we've to anecdotal evidence that indicated a shift in club culture," Mr Craig said.

"It's really added credibility to that work. For us it's saying you're on the right track."

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