Fremantle Football Club's Indigenous and multicultural liaison officer and former 100-game Docker, Roger Hayden says the club's footprint in the community is constantly getting stronger.

Freo hosted their third Kimberley 9s AFL beach carnival in Broome this week, bringing kids from all across the region in acknowledgement of their commitment to schooling and positive choices over the year.

AFL and AFLW listed players Josh Corbett, Conrad Williams and Mikayla Morrison travelled north to engage with around 200 primary and secondary students, who themselves travelled thousands of kilometres to Cable Beach.

Williams and Morrison both have ties to the Kimberley.

Fremantle Community Foundation Operations manager Emma Pass told National Indigenous Times the initiative began with a discussion between the club and WA Police to reach out and address youth crime and falling school attendance in the Kimberley.

While footy is on the agenda, the two-day carnival has grown to engage with something much larger.

Delivered through Fremantle's Purple Hands Foundation, WA Police, and other organisations, the opportunity runs off the back of education, lifestyle, health and wellbeing, community and culture-focused workshops delivered through the school year.

"The carnival is not about talent at all. It's about participation," Pass said.

She said the club is keen to offer pathways or avenues to continue playing football at home for the kids wanting them.

Food, activities and accommodation costs are all covered.

The kids helped design the shirts they wore across the two days.

"It's (the carnival) a massive part of our community engagement programmes for the club and aligned to our NGA (Next Generation Academy) programme to the Kimberley," Hayden told National Indigenous Times.

Hayden said efforts like these carry on the Dockers' strong links to community, represented in part through the strong list of Indigenous players to have pulled on the guernsey since 1995.

"And that's, that's gone all the way through to today. So we've had that in our DNA basically with the club, and we're very proud of that history and we want to continue that," he said.

"That strong connection with the community, in particular in the Kimberly, has been fantastic and really strong and we want to continue to grow those ties and those programmes that we've done...we're getting a lot of momentum with it."

Across AFL Sir Doug Nicholls Round and AFLW Indigenous Round in 2023, the Dockets rebranded to Walyalup Football Club - the traditional place name of their home base.

Hayden said it was just another step in their journey.

In October, Fremantle released its updated 'stretch' Reconciliation Action Plan.

Earlier in 2023, club AFL captain and Palawa man Alex Pearce told National Indigenous Times his connection to culture had been strengthened since being drafted to the club.