For Yorkshire Sport Foundation (YSF), Young People Forward has been an extremely positive project where they are operating in a new sector and with new organisations. One of these organisations is Roundabout, a youth housing charity based in Sheffield.
YSF have funded Roundabout to provide a diverse range of physical activity opportunities for their young people. Some examples are below:
- Therapeutic horse riding
- Access to gym facilities
- Breaking down barriers to participation. E.g equipment and clothing.
Since funding Roundabout to deliver activities, they have fed back the following:
Things are going well thus far! We’ve had some Young People sign up for the gym since they’ve reopened, and Amanda (anonymized name) has started their horse riding which they absolutely love. Personally, seeing Amanda doing something that makes her so happy is absolutely priceless. Amanda is currently staying in a safe house, due to the risks of domestic abuse. She has such low self-esteem and has had a really tough time in recent years. However, she is so excited about the riding that she’s been saving her Universal Credit to buy jodphurs, which is really motivating her budgeting skills.
She has also enquired about volunteering at the stables, which would be another real positive for her. Amanda has had so few positives in her life, which left her so vulnerable to abusive relationships. The horse riding just lets her be amongst a supportive community and feel good about herself again.
The benefits of this project have been extremely valuable to many stakeholders and everyone is excited to see how this work develops.
Young People Forward project
The Young People Forward Project aims to use sport to improve the physical and mental health, self-efficacy and resilience of young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness across the North of England and Scotland.
Yorkshire Sport Foundation along with 5 other Active Partnerships and Street Soccer Scotland are working directly with nearly 600 young people and with 42 specialist community organisations to embed sport and physical activity sessions into their programmes. Additional support will also be given to help some of the young embark on a journey out of homelessness.
The London Marathon Charitable Trust awarded a £600,000 grant to Active Partnerships which was made possible from money donated by Virgin Money.
For more information on YPF click here