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Global All Stars
Sports-Link, a Sport England funded project based at Charnwood Arts, and Leicestershire County Council’s Youth Service are working in partnership to promote community cohesion through the creation of a ‘world united’ football team, called the Global All-Stars.
The team is made up of players living in Loughborough, but originate from countries including Albania, Bangladesh, Iraq, Iran, Kosovo, and the UK. It is envisaged that the team will promote cohesion and fair play, fight racism and prejudice, celebrate cultural diversity and differences, but also have fun playing football matches locally, regionally and nationally.
The Global All-stars played their first football match on 18 December 2004 against the Leicestershire Constabulary and have also participated in a local football tournament.
“Global All-Stars has been fun, I have made new friends from different areas of Charnwood. It is interesting to hear experiences of other young people” (Albanian young person aged 13 years)
“The Global All-Stars project has been great. We play football regularly; I enjoyed playing against the Police. I wasn’t looking forward to the workshops but they have been really good. I have learnt a lot and feel I am more understanding of all people from different backgrounds” (British young person aged 17 years).
The success of the Global All Stars has led to the project winning a Community Champions excellence award from the Department for Education and Skills. There are also plans to increase the project to include women, girls and boys teams.
Sports Link
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Team-Mates
Derbyshire’s sports stars are backing young people to become involved in an innovative sports mentoring project called Team-Mates, being developed by Derby based charity Sporting Futures, thanks to funding of £192,300 from the Community Fund.
The project directly targets young people between the age of 8-16 who potentially have or have offended, misused drugs and been involved in anti-social behaviour. Together with their mentor the young people involved in such activities can begin to build for a brighter future.
The 1-2-1 sports mentoring is provided for one year during which time each ‘team’ will set specific and realistic goals that are decide by the young person and their mentor together. These goals will be based on behavioural, sporting, educational and social goals.
Derby County FC, Chesterfield FC, Derbyshire Police and many other organisations are actively supporting the project. Local Olympic Badminton player Donna Kellogg said: “I’m more than happy to be involved in such a great project, and I would ask anybody who is interested in becoming a mentor to get in touch “.
Alison Richards signed up to become a mentor because she wanted to help young people. She said,” I wanted to do voluntary work that was hands-on and thought a good way to do that would be through sport”.
Sporting Futures
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Youth and Community Sports Development
The Youth and Community sports development project in Lincolnshire is the result of a partnership approach using sport as a tool to work with young people. The project targets several communities right across Lincolnshire, including Boston, Grantham, Gainsborough and Mablethorpe.
It is funded by Lincolnshire Sports Partnership and Sport England and works in partnership with the network of youth services and agencies to build on the existing provision for young people through the development of sport and sporting activities.
In the last three years the project has reconnected with hundreds of young people who did not access sport on a regular basis or were not involved at all.
The project promotes young people’s involvement and achievement with the project through the Duke of Edinburgh Awards and Community Sports Leaders Awards. It also aims to improve opportunities for learning, education and employment by giving young people a purpose and self worth.
Tim, who is 19 and is one of the success stories of the project said: ‘I help young people play sport. I just have a laugh with them. I just wanted to get on and try and stay out of trouble. I didn’t know if I’d like it, but I tried and enjoyed it’.
Youth and Community Sports Development
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Be Active: Amber Valley Borough Council
People with a medical condition find it hard to believe that by making physical activity a part of their daily routine they can improve their health and quality of life. The Be Active project has found ways to overcome this barrier. Individual requests from many health providers inspired Jackie Goacher, Leisure Services General Manager, to provide a service for the co-ordinated provision of physical activity.
A team of instructors offer individual physical activity support and encouragement to people in the Amber Valley area of Derbyshire with, or at risk of, a medical condition. During the 20 sessions clients can choose to take part in both class and gym-based activities, and are encouraged to be active in their own time. Jackie says
‘The depth of the relationship between the referrer, client and co-ordinator is one of the keys to success. A one-to-one chat between the instructor and client helps to form a trusting relationship and boosts confidence and motivation to be active.’
Jackie has also formed a partnership with Derwent Shared Services to develop an evaluation system that will hopefully secure mainstream funding and ensure that the Be Active Project becomes sustainable.
With over 300 referrals in 6 months the success of the programme speaks for itself. One PCT manager said ‘it is the best thing the PCT has ever done’.
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Fit Active Braunstone
The Fit Active Braunstone project in Leicester was established to see if mentoring and practical support would be a successful way of delivering access to sustainable physical activity for local residents who feel they are unable to do so because of barriers including lack of transport, poor health and cost.
So far over 130 people have “graduated” from the project, including Marie Laffar who said, ‘Without the project, I wouldn’t have got into climbing and wouldn’t have been doing that in the Peak District. I wouldn’t have known how to get into football coaching and would have been too nervous to go on my own’.
The concept for the project came about when the Braunstone Sport Action Zone consulted over 700 residents about sport and exercise. Caron Walpole, manager of the Sport Action Zone said, “People told us that they didn’t have the money, the transport or they just didn’t think they’d fit in at a gym. It became clear that the only way to help people achieve was to help them to break down the barriers that stopped them.”
Project co-ordinator Clare Mills explains: “It’s no good telling people, do exercise, go to the gym. You have to ask people as individuals what they want to achieve and what stops them getting there.”
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Women and Girls in Sport Project
The Women and Girls in Sport project based at the Manor Sports College in Mansfield Woodhouse not only aims to increase participation of women and girls in sport but also to raise awareness of the barriers which affect participation.
In doing so the project aims to assist schools and communities in developing sustainable practices, share examples of good practice, and develop positive attitudes to sport to improve self-esteem and self-worth of women and girls, by identifying appropriate female role models.
In order to promote these aims the project has produced a ground-breaking toolkit that offers a number of intervention strategies to support P.E. departments in offering a more girl-friendly curriculum. Other potential barriers the toolkit raises include whether facilities provide a positive environment, does P.E. kit make the girls more self-conscious, teaching style and attitude, and weather conditions.
The project has also ran successful taster days attended by over 2400 women and girls who were offered a variety of activities including golf, orienteering, football, trampolining and gymnastics. One young mum who attended with her five-year old daughter said, ‘We have had a fantastic day. I’m so glad I decided to come along’
Mandy Wright, Partnership Development Manager of the School Sport Partnership based at Manor Specialist Sport College says ‘The Women and Girls in Sport Project has helped support our secondary school and its young leaders by providing inspiration, advice and hands on help to develop activities specifically for pupils at the schools and in their local communities. The range of resources developed as a result of the project have also been greatly appreciate by the schools and community groups’
Women and Girls in Sport toolkit
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Safer Communities through Sport
‘Safer Communities through Sport’ is a partnership approach to increasing participation in sport and reducing anti-social behaviour across ten key wards in the High Peak and Derbyshire Dales districts of rural Derbyshire.
The local County Sport Partnership, Derbyshire Sport, manages the project that aims to develop new and innovative methods of engaging with young people through participation, volunteering, and leadership in sport. A year in the project has already achieved: - Baseline data gathered on levels of anti-social behaviour, current sport and recreation opportunities identified and youth needs surveys carried out in two of the wards.
- Secured funding from several sources, including an Active England bid of £109,000 for a permanent skate park and part time youth engagement officer in Derbyshire Dales.
- A referral system developed with the Youth Offending Team and the Police where any young person known to them who has a sporting interest can be referred to the Team Mates programme where they will be designated a voluntary mentor.
- Recognition within the Derbyshire Dales Community Safety Partnerships action plan as a form of good practice.
- Formed a constituted multi activity sports club in Tideswell that has been developed and has basic equipment paid and provided.
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Score 4 Sport
The Score 4 Sport project was created to provide diversionary sporting activity for young people aged 8-19 living in Braunstone, the New Deal for Communities area in Leicester. The activity aimed to remove boredom affecting young people on the estate, which led to anti-social behaviour and crime. In the first year the project worked with over 300 young people, providing free sports activity.
The young people attend daily sessions and accrue credits. If, by the end of the week they have accrued enough credits they are taken on special trips such as go-karting, rock climbing or snowboarding. The young people have responded well and have built trust and a rapport with the youth support workers and qualified coaches running the sessions. Many of the young people have also started to coach and have passed their Level 1 Coaching Certificate as well as a Junior Football Organiser Award.
As a result of the project every school in the area has reported a drop in the amount of vandalism over the summer holidays and the Police have had fewer incidents of anti-social behaviour to deal with. The strength of the project is endorsed by the following comments from the participants. Dan Johnson (age 19) says:
“Score 4 Sport has given us opportunities to gain qualifications and make lots of new friends whilst having fun”
Joe Smith (age 16) says:
“Score 4 Sport has given me the step up I needed to pursue my coaching career. As well as giving people opportunities, it has also helps our community in its regeneration and gives young people a more healthy output for their time”
The project has also been successful in attracting funding from Positive Activities for Young People, Positive Futures, New Deal for Communities, and Connexions.
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Positive Futures Derby
Positive Futures Derby, hosted by the charity Sporting Futures, was one of the first phase Positive Futures projects in the country and has been running since September 2000. In forging close links with local schools and colleges, the youth service, Osmaston On-Track and Addaction, a strong base of community sport activity outreach and 1-2-1 sports mentoring has been developed.
With one full time member of staff and two part time staff, supported by the rest of the Sporting Futures team, the project has worked with 20 young people to date on a 1-2-1 basis and over 500 young people have attended the community sport sessions. Alongside this work the project provides opportunities for the young people to attend Community and Junior Sports Leaders Awards and other various sport specific coaching courses.
In 2003 Derby Positive Futures again hosted the National football tournaments where over 60 Positive Futures teams from all over the country took part in a full day of quality competitive football. In 2004 the project completed its third summer sports programme for young people aged between 10-19 in the Osmaston and Allenton areas of Derby. The programme offers young people the opportunities to take part in various sports including football, rugby, cricket and athletics, free of charge, some of which they may have only limited experience of.
Sporting Futures
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