Re-engaging vulnerable children with school through football

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Football Beyond Borders imagine that football is probably the most highly effective instrument on the earth for constructing sturdy relationships, and that in flip, FBB makes use of these relationships to assist drive unbelievable outcomes at school for vulnerable younger folks.

The charity works with younger folks from areas of socio-economic drawback who’re keen about football, however disengaged at school, serving to them end school with the abilities and grades to make a profitable transition into maturity.

They do that by offering long-term, intensive help, constructed round relationships and younger folks’s passions, within the classroom and past.

FBB’s group of youth employees develop constant and long-term relationships with younger folks and give attention to growing their strengths. Their practitioners present position fashions the younger folks can relate to and are embedded throughout younger folks’s lives at school and through shut contact with mother or father/carer(s) at dwelling.

FBB’s journey started in a standard room at a University in London.

The University football captain Jasper Kain requested his teammates to embark on a summer time football tour to the Middle East and use football as a instrument to create constructive social change. Jack Reynolds, FBB’s present CEO, was additionally current that day. After a number of years of operating these excursions, the 2011 London riots highlighted that younger folks within the UK didn’t have the alternatives or company to form their future in a constructive method. Since then, the pair have been dedicated to constructing FBB as a car to vary the lives of younger folks in England. 

FBB started by operating youth football classes in a variety of settings (each in school and group outreach classes) in south London and shortly realised that there was an actual want for this work. However, FBB quickly established that they might make most affect through working with faculties to have interaction youthful folks of their early teenagers.

This strategy to early evaluation and intervention centered on seeing behaviour as a type of communication, and dealing to help younger folks with long-term trusted grownup relationships.

CEO Jack Reynolds has mentioned that the objective of the charity is to make sure that vulnerable younger folks have somebody who can help them: “We want the government to create a National Training Programme (similar to Frontline, TeachFirst and Unlocked) for school pastoral staff to ensure every vulnerable young person has a youth worker or trusted adult who can support them.

“Since its inception FBB has grown from working in one school in Croydon to now supporting over 2,000 young people and hundreds of teachers on more than 125 programmes.”

– FBB

“This programme will build on the learning from FBB’s existing training scheme which develops trauma-informed experts with core skills across counselling, special educational needs and teaching and learning.

“We are asking for an education system which provides our headteachers with the resources to support our most vulnerable students to thrive in mainstream school. After what these young people experienced during Covid, it feels like the bare minimum of what we should do for them.”

Since its inception FBB has grown from working in one school in Croydon to now supporting over 2,000 young people and hundreds of teachers on more than 125 programmes in London, Kent, Essex, Greater Manchester, North Lancashire, Merseyside and the West Midlands. 

One of the many young people who has benefitted from FBB’s work is Fernando. The charity began working with Fernando in Year 8 and at time when he was deemed to be at risk of exclusion. Fernando had few attachment figures in his life and mental health issues in his family. However, when he was enrolled onto FBB, he was immediately elevated to a central figure in the group due to his charismas, relational skills, leadership skills and footballing ability.

Through working with FBB practitioners Stefan and Lorenzo, Fernando became more self aware and his self-regulation improved. He formed positive relationships with his teachers and his peers. Fernando collected his GCSE results this summer. He achieved a Level 9 in English Literature and a Level 9 in Music. He passed all of his other GCSEs with Level 6s and 7s. 

FBB have also recently teamed up with Common Goal in order to bring together the football industry in London to ask: what could football’s role in solving some of society’s biggest social problems be?

Workshops at the Football For Good Summit enabled attendees to co-create The Football For Good Gameplan. The Football For Good Gameplan is a report from said summit, and a guide on how football can be used to tackle some of society’s biggest issues.

The Gameplan documents the ideas that were captured about how football can be used to create a more inclusive society. It provides a record of the summit and the discussions that took place.

The purpose of the document is to highlight the beginnings of a movement which is intent on seeing the potential of football to do good in society. 

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