The BackTrack team and their border collies will head down the highway to stage a dog-jumping demonstration on Wednesday after receiving an invitation too good to refuse.

When the NSW Governor Frank Hurley and Mrs Hurley visited the BackTrack compound in January this year, Northern Tablelands MP Adam Marshall issued the Parliament House invitation and the vice-regal couple responded with an invitation to Government House on the same visit.

Education Minister Adrian Piccoli will host the Parliament House jump in The Domain following a morning tea with government ministers and MPs in the Speaker’s Garden, before a demonstration at Government House in the afternoon.

“The BackTrack program has been a phenomenal success in re-engaging at-risk young people with education, training and the community and placing them in jobs,” Mr Marshall said.

Founded by youth worker Bernie Shakeshaft a decade ago, BackTrack has now become the first youth program in the world to have its outcomes evaluated through university research.

Results of the three year collaborative research by the Universities of NSW, New England and James Cook and the Hunter Medical Research Institute will be published in The Australia and New Zealand Journal of Public Health this year. 

The findings reveal that after involvement in the program participants show significant reductions in psychological stress, suicide ideation, multiple suspensions from school and weekly illicit drug use.

Overall the youth crime rate in the communities in which BackTrack operates have reduced substantially.

BackTrack offers four key programs: Iron Man Welders, Paws Up dog jumping, AgLads agricultural work and The Paddock, the classroom with a teacher employed three days a week.

The organisation earns 25 percent of its own income. The remainder comes from donations and grants.