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For too long, efforts to get people active followed a familiar pattern – launch a campaign, start a programme, open a facility and hope people turn up.

When engagement was low, especially in communities facing deprivation, ill health or isolation, the blame often fell on individuals.

But the real issue runs deeper.

Today’s Active Lives Adult Survey data shows overall activity levels are improving, yet inequalities remain – and in some cases are widening – highlighting the limits of this approach.

Through our place-based work, we are flipping that script.

Our approach isn’t about parachuting in with short-term initiatives. It’s about changing local systems and putting power, funding and decision-making into the hands of communities themselves.

It’s about reshaping the conditions that make movement possible.

This is a structural shift – from national delivery to locally-led systems; from fragmented interventions to collaboration; and from doing things to communities to working with them.

Crucially, this way of working is starting to show signs of impact, particularly for adults who have historically been least active.

From programmes to places

At its core, place-based working recognises a simple truth: where you live shapes how active you are.

Access to safe green space, transport, income, health, and social networks all matter. So instead of generic national solutions, we are investing up to £250 million into over 90 communities with the greatest need.

But funding is only part of it. The real change is in how decisions are made.

The system impact is scaling

Across all place-based work, our impact is increasingly visible at scale.

In 10 of our original 12 Place Pilots, physical activity is now embedded into health and care pathways – meaning movement is supported through GPs, social prescribing and community health teams.

In Doncaster, this approach has mobilised 757 organisations and 1,500 local leaders to create a coordinated local system where physical activity is no longer a standalone service but part of how the whole area works.

In places like Essex, our investment has helped them unlock around £65 million in additional funding – turning relatively small seed funding into large-scale investment that reaches far more people and creates longer-lasting change.

Leadership capacity is also expanding. Over the last two years around 1,000 local leaders have been trained through our Leading the Movement programme, strengthening the ability of places to sustain change beyond our initial funding.

This is not just a collection of local success stories. It is a different operating model. It's a quiet revolution – one that is reshaping how communities think about movement, health and wellbeing from the ground up.

Because lasting change doesn’t come from programmes, it comes from places.

Oxfordshire is one of ten early testers for Place Universal Offer (PUO) funding in England and we’ve used this support to turbo-charge our community-driven work to tackle systemic inequalities and to get more people moving.

With Oxfordshire becoming a Marmot Place, proportionate universalism is writ large in our work as a system.

PUO investment gives us a practical opportunity to provide a universal offer of leadership training, supporting work in culturally-competent ways, upscaling what works and sharing learning; all whilst, simultaneously, focusing more intensely on where needs are greatest and inequalities are most stark.

The role of Community Anchor Organisations

Our belief is that the closer we are to the challenges, the nearer we are to finding their solutions too.

PUO work is more than simply starting from scratch or creating new projects or programmes.

Instead, it’s about identifying community leaders in priority areas who already understand their barriers and have trust within their own communities.

PUO is also about working with and through them to create the biggest impact, and it’s about listening far more than talking and being ready to learn and shift the way that we work to optimise processes and results.

That’s why we have made a deliberate choice to work with a small number of Community Anchor Organisations in our priority neighbourhoods, including Oxford Community Action.

By working in this way, we can put lived experiences at the front and centre in the creation of solutions.

What difference is being made so far?

Whilst it is early days for our PUO journey, we are seeing some positive early signs that reinforce how it’s possible to enable both short-term action and long-term systemic shifts.
 

Communities can’t wait years for change, and they shouldn’t have to, but PUO funding has enabled us to start creating the environments needed for long-term change to empower action now.

The conditions defining these new environments are:

• an increase in referrals from communities in priority areas into sport and physical activity interventions, which have proven to decrease inactivity and to improve wellbeing
• regular dialogue with community leaders, which has strengthened our organisational knowledge and our understanding of community matters
• direct community feedback and collaborative work with national governing bodies and their constituent clubs, which has resulted in the creation of new provisions, especially Sunnah activities
• placing community needs at the front and centre of physical activity opportunities, which has resulted in five grassroots organisations receiving support to sustain these activities by Oxford Community Action
• more upstream, systemic conversations taking place about how community groups can access leisure, sport and activity more easily.

Key learnings so far

So how has all this work helped us grow?

These are the key learnings that we’d like to share in case they can help others too:

• Community leaders are not just vehicles through which communities can be reached and physical activity delivered. They are strategic trailblazers and face the same challenges as any other leads. In fact, the stakes on them are arguably higher as they live, work and play in the communities they serve.
• Community work is a 24/7 job for community leaders. Organisationally, they need to be prepared to work differently. As one community leader told us: “For us, this is our live". We need to demonstrate that we truly care and want to make a difference to successfully build trust to undertake place-based work.
• We need to be ready to step out of our comfort zone and be prepared to really listen to understand and speak honestly with each other.
• We aim to blur the line between organisations, so there’s no more “us and them” and the system and communities see each other as part of the same team.
• By working through Community Anchor Organisations, our network and reach naturally grow to include people and organisations we may not have met otherwise. This allows for the rapid growth of movement, as each person and organisation in turn introduces more people and organisations to this way of working.

We are six months into our three-year PUO journey and are really excited by early learnings and future potential.

This is a system-wide effort, with organisations like Oxford Community Action at the heart of change and, together, we are working to create healthier futures for the residents of Oxfordshire.
 

Boxing is my religion. Like all spiritual journeys it began with a moment of divine inspiration and my baptism was conducted whilst watching Muhammed Ali defeat George Foreman in “The Rumble In The Jungle”.

I grew up in boxing gyms with the sport giving me purpose, discipline and titles – including representing my country on numerous occasions.

These days it offers me the chance to inspire the next generation of boxers and to help anyone who walks through the gym door, to believe in themselves and choose a positive path in life. 

When people ask me why boxing matters so much to me, my answer is simple: it changes and saves lives.

A safe space for all

Of course, it also improves health and builds confidence, but boxing keeps people – especially young people – away from anti-social behaviour and crime, something that I can personally verify as a former Youth Justice Manager. 

With the number of proven offences committed by children seeing an increase of 4%, change has never been so important and there are many ways boxing helps fight crime.

Firstly, boxing gives young people structure and boundaries.

Many of the children and young people who walk through the doors of a boxing gym – like mine in Oldham, Greater Manchester – come from difficult backgrounds and have challenging lives. 

Having little or no access to opportunities and therefore a lack of agency in the world, may result in challenging behaviours. But not dealing with these pressures means they risk spilling out onto the streets and that’s where crime starts. 

Not because young people are 'bad', but because they have nowhere positive to pour their energy into. But boxing gyms can change that, as these spaces are built on discipline, respect, routine and team spirit.

You don’t just turn up to your gym whenever you feel like it. Instead, you’re expected to train on time, plus you have to listen to your coach, and you learn that effort leads to results and that shortcuts rarely work.

These lessons transfer directly into everyday life and children who understand discipline in a boxing gym are far less likely to make reckless decisions outside it.

Boxing also teaches emotional control, becasue contrary to what some may think, this sport helps a young person understand how to control their emotions, particularly aggression, and how to think and act under pressure.

I’ve seen it first hand – children who once lashed out can calm themselves because boxing gave them an outlet for their emotions and that allows them to thrive.

The many lessons of boxing

Boxing is a good metaphor for life and can help to develop those personal and social skills that people need, contributing to tackling deep seated worklessness and low aspirations.

The sport also fosters the development of positive character, self-esteem, self-discipline, courage, perseverance and resilience.

Instead of throwing punches on the street, they hit the pads, the bags and their coach or opponent inside the ring, but always with respect to the sport’s rules, under supervision and with a reason.

Boxing also teaches respect — for yourself and for others. You shake hands, you follow rules and you learn that real strength comes from self-control, not intimidation. These values reduce crime at its roots.

Another factor that's key is the sense of belonging among those practising the sport. A boxing gym offers identity and loyalty because, at a gym, you’re part of a team.

You train together, look out for each other and you wear the gym name with pride. That sense of identity can pull someone away from a path that leads to anti-social behaviour and crime.

I’ve seen boxing change lives in Oldham and Greater Manchester, where young people that were heading toward trouble now have focus and a reason to stay on the straight and narrow, and I’ve also seen young people who had no confidence, find self-belief.

Not all these children will become a champion boxer and that's okay.

Building better lives through sport

The real victories happen when a young person chooses to stay in school, can find a job or simply chooses not to commit a crime because they don’t want to let their gym or coach down.

At our newly refurbished Greater Manchester Boxing and Development Hub, we’ve been lucky enough to benefit from Sport England funding. 

To my mind, our investors aren’t just putting money into a boxing club and community gym. They’re investing in crime prevention and harm minimisation.

It costs less to fund a gym than it does to deal with the consequences of crime and anti-social behaviour – policing, court cases, prison and reform – as recent estimates place the total economic and social cost of serious youth violence at £11 billion between 2009 and 2020.

For me, boxing is more than titles and trophies, it’s about giving people a chance.

Every time a young person chooses to walk into a gym and away from 'the road', I believe that’s crime prevention in action and that’s why boxing will always matter. 

As one of the 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester, Oldham forms part of Sport England’s Place Partnership with Greater Manchester Moving and other local bodies to implement Sport England's Uniting the Movement strategy for getting people active.

I’m proud of what boxing can do to change lives.

In the words of the iconic social activist, pacifist and politician, Nelson Mandela: “Sport can awaken hope where there was previously only despair.”

Every day, I get to see the truth in these great words in action.
 

Suicide prevention and increased employability among young men might not be the traditional aims of physical activity programmes, but at Rise – the leading North East health and wellbeing charity – we're showing how lives and communities can be transformed using the power of movement.

Rise is the active partnership for Tyne and Wear, Northumberland and County Durham, and we’re using physical activity as part of a pioneering approach to reduce inequalities and to boost physical and mental health.

As part of this work, we’ve undertaken a significant project in Berwick called Rise’s Healthy Minds for Healthy Lives, working directly with more than 100 men aged 16-30.

Understanding the issues faced by our young men

Like many communities in the North East, young people in Berwick face complex socio-economic problems including unemployment, poor health, relationship difficulties and issues surrounding debt, poverty and substance misuse.

These struggles have had a consequential effect on the mental health of young men in town.

Using data from referrals and initial interviews of the young men we worked with in Berwick, we found that:

• 43% constantly considered suicide
• 76% had diagnosed mental health disorders
• 81% had substance abuse issues
• 67% were unemployed
• 43% faced significant debt.

Our work within the community in Berwick addresses the physical and psychological aspects of wellbeing but it goes beyond that, giving people practical skills as well.

This broad and comprehensive approach helps build stronger and resilient mental health, enhancing young people’s overall quality of life, and by working directly with people who need our help the most, we aim to improve their immediate health and wellbeing.

We also build on their ambitions, motivations and employability prospects, which helps them grow their confidence, improve their mental health and to strengthen their wellbeing through physical activity.

Deacon's story

One positive example from our work within the Berwick community is Deacon’s story.

A local resident of 29 years of age, Deacon had struggled with social issues including anxiety and depression from a young age.
 

Following a difficult living environment, Deacon moved away from his support network to Berwick with his father and that's when isolation set in.

Deacon said: “I needed to be more active and find solutions. I’d never filled in housing applications; I’d never filled in job applications. That help was there when I needed it and I’ve improved in every aspect of my life. I refer to Jaki as the woman who saved my life. She’s absolutely amazing, I cannot thank her enough.”

When Deacon came to see us, I could have scraped him off the floor – he had no sense of self-worth – and I think that had been destroyed by the environment that he had been in.

But then I was able to get him enrolled onto an outdoor equine and nature activity course followed by an employment and wellbeing course.

Fortunately the course providers paid for the transport, which took away that barrier of him getting in from where he lived and he even helped him secure a job out of it!

After gaining employment, Deacon was able to acquire a bike and that enabled him to cycle to and from work, which helped him improve his physical health.

A month after that, he was also offered a local authority flat. The smile on his face was immense. I’m proud of how Deacon has turned it around.

The power of physical activity

Our internal data reflects that since May 2021, Rise has supported 118 young men to improve their lives. Recent evaluations found that: 

• 96% showed a reduced risk of anti-social behaviour
• 76% had successfully applied for a job, training or further learning
• 87% now take part in physical activity
• 75% felt confident with themselves and felt they were making positive choices.

Rise’s Healthy Minds for Healthy Lives project was initially supported by the Northumbria Violence Reduction Unit and London North Eastern Railway and has subsequently been funded by the National Lottery to enable the work to continue.

Through working within communities, we've helped transform the lives of young men, demonstrating how physical activity has the power to enact positive change.