Midnight Basketball is a program which began in the Redfern-Waterloo area in February 2006 and has since been conducted in dozens of centres, including Armidale, Auburn, Bathurst, Bendigo, Geraldton and Port Augusta.

The Woolloomooloo program was featured in TV documentary Playing in the Shadows, screened on the ABC last year.

Now Wollongong City Council, Shellharbour City Council and other community stakeholders including NSW Health and the police have submitted an expression of interest to Midnight Basketball to start the two-year program in the Illawarra.

It includes an eight-week professional basketball tournament held twice yearly and can cater for up to 80 young people aged between 12 and 18.

The children arrive at the stadium for dinner at 7pm and for five hours rotate between basketball games and life skills workshops. They also write their code of conduct.

No Workshop, No Jumpshot is the program's motto.

"It's usually held on a Saturday night, which is the highest risk period of the week when there are issues in the community and kids need something to do," Ms White said.

"At the end of the night a bus takes the youths home, because the last thing the community needs is 60 to 80 young people leaving a stadium at midnight."

Midnight Basketball has also acted as a bridge to other community programs as well as education, work and sporting opportunities.

"We have tremendously positive results in engaging young people with the wider community," Ms White said.

"People often say there is nothing to engage kids on Saturday night, so ... if you provide something really engaging and magnetic, and it keeps them off the street on Saturday night, it has to have a positive effect."