BUILDING BACK FAIRER
Whilst our strategy and our work is in no way focused solely on recovering from the Coronavirus pandemic, it is undeniable that the pandemic has caused immeasurable disruption to our society which will be felt for many years to come.
These effects have widened the inequalities faced by women, those from ethnically diverse communities, those living in deprived areas, disabled people and people living with long term health conditions. That is why a number of our partnerships and programmes have been established to focus on building back fairer.
The Sport England Tackling Inequalities Fund enabled us to distribute almost £350,000 to community projects in Tyne & Wear, leading to thousands of residents being more physically active. As well as helping us to establish relationships with community organisations who are closer to those priority groups we need to reach; organisations such as Tailored Leisure Company.
Through funding awarded by the London Marathon Charitable Trust we worked in partnership with organisations to show how physical activity can support young people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.
The Barclays Community Aid Package enabled us to work with the reablement teams of our six local authorities to distribute 4000 activity packs that have subsequently been used as an additional tool to improve strength, co-ordination and balance of those older people at risk of slips, trips and falls. The project also enabled us to develop new partnerships with local authority health and social care teams.
We have been working in partnership with Sunderland Young People’s Bike Project and the Bikeability Trust to increase the participation in Bikeability Training and to target those children who do not currently access Bikeability Training at school, often because they don’t have their own bike.
The project, which is funded by a grant from the Department for Transport is running as a pilot from March – Sept 2022. The pilot project will create a learn to ride centre within the park to deliver the cycle training with the project targeting groups such as children who are unable to access Bikeability Training at their local school, community groups, cohorts of secondary aged girls and particularly those people who do not currently have access to a bike. The initial sessions have been well received and The Bikeability Trust aim to use the learning and evaluation from the pilot projects to secure future funding to ensure that Bikeability Training is more widely available.
We have been working with the five of our local authorities who were eligible to apply for funding from the Football Foundation via the Active Through Football programme.
Through the programme we worked closely with key local stakeholders to help to create local place-based plans which aim to tackle inequalities and increase the number of opportunities for adults to take part in recreational and informal small-sided football activities.
We were delighted to see three of our local consortia being successful with their applications for over £1m of funding over the next five years and are hopeful that following some further community consultation in 2022-2023, a fourth consortia will also be involved in the Active Through Football programme.
Working with, and funded by, Coach Core, the Northumberland and Tyne & Wear Coach Core apprenticeship programme has seen us working with 13 employers and 16 young people. The programme has enabled the young people to conclude their Level 2 Community Activator qualification and reach their end point assessments. Over 50% of the young people have since gone on to gain employment with their respective employers and are continuing to deliver meaningful fit for purpose physical activity sessions to target populations within local communities. During 2021-2022, we have also launched the second Northumberland and Tyne & Wear programme supporting 19 apprentices at 13 employers.
