The ‘Take the Lead’ programme was established to address the shortfall of women in leadership, activator and coaching roles in Leicester-Shire and Rutland. Furthermore, it was a clear outcome of the programme to ensure women were supported into deployment opportunities in priority areas to ensure long term community sustainability. National research at the time indicated that women were under-represented in the workforce (this reflected our local insight) and LRS and its partners wanted to take positive action to address this challenge. The programme has been delivered in 2 phases, with phase 2 building on the learning from the initial phase.
Women that had interacted with LRS through existing programmes were targeted for recruitment, specifically those women that had reach into a non-traditional target audience. There were two key elements to our project planning. Firstly, engaging with the right partners to identify women within our target market and secondly, ensuring we had right support structure in place for the programme participants to access.
We were clear that for the Take the Lead programme to have the best opportunity to be successful, we wanted potential participants to have some knowledge or interest in sport and physical activity. LRS’s growing reach into Early Years settings, care homes and local charities has meant that we could work beyond our historical partnerships. The LRS Coaching Development Manager engaged with a broad range of partners to identify women who fitted the criteria of expressing an interest sport and physical activity as well as having reach into non-traditional audiences. Each potential participant was approached individually to ascertain their interest and motivations and the first cohort of 29 women were invited to an open evening. Local “This Girl Can” Ambassadors supported this event to share their journey within the sport and physical activity sector.
In phase 1, 25 women fully engaged with the Take the Lead programme, each being supported to produce a personal development plan (PDP). A suite of coaching, Activator and minimum operating standard courses were organised and 1 to 1 support was provided for each participant to keep them on track.
CASE STUDY – SHARON TAIT
One of the Take the Lead participants, Sharon Tait, was featured in a recent article within the national “Woman & Home” magazine. Sharon, is 63 and a retired nurse. Sharon said that she had been looking for a volunteer role as she had been due to retire. The Take the Lead programme seemed like the perfect way to pass on her love of running and help other people look after their health – something she was passionate about after years of working with the NHS. She attended a Leadership and Running Fitness course, which gave her the confidence and skills to support people run safely. Sharon said “It was up to me to decide how I wanted to use my new skills. I decided to focus on attracting non-runners especially women to take it up”. She has supported 100s of women this year and said that one of her graduates ran the 2017 London Marathon.
Sharon said “I was incredibly proud to have played a part in her discovering a passion for running. See people grow in confidence and becoming fitter is so rewarding and its also a very sociable experience for me”
CASE STUDY – MUSLIM WOMEN (OADBY & WIGSTON)
6 Muslim women, recruited to the ‘Take the Lead’ programme have been extremely passionate about becoming good coaches and being positive role models for their daughters and fellow mothers in their community. LRS worked closely with these women for an extended period of time to gain their trust and understand their motivations for wanting to introduce sport and physical activity into their lives. It was learnt that their primary motivation for being part of the Take the Lead programme is to encourage their families to lead active and healthy lives. The group were very aware and conscious that there is a higher risk of diabetes amongst South Asian people. LRS shaped a flexible delivery model for the women to become leaders/activators, such as completing qualifications in the community mosque. Create personal development plans for the women and an overall workforce plan. Provided support and ideas for the women to establish a sustainable session for women and girls to access, and ultimately empower the mothers within the group to become positive role models to their daughters.
One of the participants, Razia said “I couldn't have done it without your support and encouragement. You ladies have made it all possible for me”.
The success and learning from this model has informed the roll out of phase 2 of the Take the Lead programme. Working specifically with the Loughborough Bangladeshi Association, the programme has targeted a further 24 Muslim women to support them into sport and physical activity leadership roles, thus demonstrating that our initial model could be replicated and scaled up. We have learnt that the women benefit from mentoring and a feeling of being part of something, a community. Locally we have reacted to this and have recruited a group of female mentors, some of which are already #ThisGirlCan champions. We have also established a very informal forum (coffee and chat type session). These informal gathering provide a platform for the women to receive support from each other and have been crucial to the success of our project. We have a ‘closed’ Facebook page that has been set up for existing Take the Lead members which the ‘new’ women have joined.
In phase 2, the women have so far attended training in Emergency First Aid, Safeguarding & Protecting Young People, Mental Health Awareness and a Seated Physical Activity exercise course. They have also completed a Badminton Smash Up Activator workshop, which has enabled them to organise and lead regular daytime and evening Badminton sessions. Furthermore, the women have recently qualified as Walk Leaders are being supported to set up their own walking groups across Charnwood.
In total 49 women have been supported by the LRS Take the Lead programme to achieve a qualification and be deployed into an activity of their choice within their local communities. As a cohort they will have supported 1000’s of individuals in 2017 to become more physically active. They have established friendship groups and have set up social media forums, through which they communicate. LRS have been in constant contact with these women and have supported them throughout their leadership journey, through group forums, support to produce and achieve their personal development plans, 1 to 1 mentor support, communication through social media channels. We have connected some of the women to our existing sport and physical activity infrastructure, for instance, those that qualified as Run Leaders are being support by our local Run Activator and have attended Run Leader Forums.