CEO: "A significant step"

This past week has seen a significant step in the Community Trust returning, as close as possible, to ‘normal’ in the new environment.

Whilst our team have been working hard in the background to put plans in place, last Monday saw us return to local schools to start this seasons delivery of PL Primary Stars, Fit2Go, Unstoppable, PL Inspires and our Children in Need project for young people with disabilities.

PL Primary Stars supports schools to improve their standards of PE, with the majority of our focus being on supporting teachers and staff to increase their understanding and knowledge and to raise their motivation and confidence to deliver the subject to their pupils.

Fit2Go, which begins our 10th season of delivery, works with every year 4 pupil in Blackpool to understand the importance of living a healthy lifestyle, by delivering workshops focused on balanced diets, snacks and drinks, importance of physical activity and getting enough sleep at night.

Unstoppable is our mental health programme, which works with every year 6 pupil to increase their resilience and confidence to speak up on many issues, including transition form year 6 to year 7 at school, family relationships, negative behaviours and involvement in gangs.

PL Inspires works with year 9 pupils to support them to mentally prepare for the difficult exam timetable they have ahead of them in their journey through GCSE’s and our Children in Need programme support local young people with disabilities to engage in regular physical activity and sport.

We were also finally able to officially launch our DIVERT programme, which focuses on delivery within custody suites, supporting people being released and encouraging them to engage in positive activities.  The intention is to change their previous negative habits and crime engagements.

The programme started in March, but lockdown has meant we had to refocus the work. This week saw us attend the custody suite in Blackpool for the first time and prepare to develop a case load of participants that are booked in to the facility.

This actually means we only have two of our projects (out of almost fifty) that we have not been able to restart, these being our physical activities in local nurseries and also our community based Tiny Tangerines.

Both focused at early years, but both delivered in indoor spaces, so we cannot deliver these whilst the FA guidance does not allow indoor football. Hopefully we’ll get some change in the restrictions soon.