Sporting Communities - “What they give back is worth its weight in gold”
We caught up with Ben Rigby, Managing Director at Sporting Communities, to talk about how they are supporting young people with work placements across their organisation.
Ben’s background is in sport and youth work, with 22 years spent in the community sport environment. He started his career as a community coach, and then went on to focus on sport development.
Ben sits on the CIMSPA Workforce Professional Standards Board for Community Sport, and the Local Skills Accountability Board for Cheshire.
Who are Sporting Communities?
“It creates a safe space where whether you’re getting support from us or not, everyone can come together and have fun.”
Sporting Communities are a community development organisation.
Operating predominantly across Derbyshire, Cheshire and Staffordshire, they use sport and creative arts as a tool to engage with individuals in their communities, in order to contribute towards the social development in those areas.
The non-for-profit organisation deliver community sports sessions, as well as training, work experience and bid writing. Mentoring, family support and community mediation is also available through their sister charity, Supporting Communities.
Varying styles of work placements available at Sporting Communities
The community sport organisation works with young people through internships and work placements of differing lengths.
Coming from institutions such as Loughborough University and Derby University, young people secure undergraduate work placements that tend to be both short and long term, ranging from 100 hours to 12 months.
Young people can also come through the work placements pathway from their own community projects, where volunteering is encouraged during teenage years and becomes more formalised once they turn 16.
To start off with, it’s about getting them to support what they are doing as coaches, such as running a warm-up at the beginning of the session. And if they enjoy that experience, help them to take it on more formally at a pace that suits them.
“We’ve got a young person who has come from a low socio-economic community, where opportunities are limited. To be able to work with her to develop herself personally, but also through the opportunities that we can present, she’s just a force to be reckoned with.
“She’s an incredible young woman who through her own giving of time, has been able to step onto different platforms and into different places where she can talk about her stories, get amazing work experience, and ultimately get into employment.”
So, what does a typical placement look like at Sporting Communities?
“The journey that young people get is bespoke to their needs and capacity – we’re lucky to be able to flex around them.
“Young people don’t always know what they want to do straight away – and that’s perfectly okay. If someone was to come onboard and say that they want to be a sports coach, and then after a while they say ‘actually, I don’t want to do that, I’d rather go into marketing or community development instead, or training or teaching for example’, we will go with it. We aren’t set to a script – we can change it and move around depending on where their passions and interests lie.”
“Our first student from Loughborough University has only just left us. He started on a 12-month work placement and has been with us for five years.
“When he started with us, he wanted to be a sports psychologist, and his placement took him in all sorts of different directions. He took part in project management, events management and planning, marketing and digital media, as well as the wellbeing side of things that linked to his passion.
“He always valued the broad range of experience offered as it’s built him into a well-rounded person, as well as developing his transferrable skills. As he goes on to be a sports psychologist, he’s got a better appreciation for the team that he will be working with.”
For Sporting Communities, what are the benefits in taking on work placement students?
Firstly, they can get a young person’s insight – as an organisation who does a lot of work with young people, having that firsthand experience is really helpful.
“The norms that I experienced as a young person aren’t the same as what young people are experiencing now. It helps us be able to understand what life is like for a young person now, so that we can change our way of thinking and what we’re doing to meet the needs of those people. Ultimately, this will help us gain a better understanding and be more empathic.
“Let’s say we’re working on a project around anti-social behaviour. The amount of intel and insight that you can get from local work placement students around the local groups and the latest activities is invaluable. It allows our workers to be safe, and young people are often quite willing to share that information because fundamentally, they value the safety of the people in their community.
“If we’re working on a new strategic model for example, and they want to get involved, then that’s great. It works for them as they get to be a part of that and understand the work behind the scenes – it gives a well-rounded approach for the young person, and for us it opens a whole different way of thinking and sparks creativity.”
What is the impact on the young person, particularly those who began as participants?
“When recipients of that community sport development work can contribute and offer that back, we really do see that they thrive. There is a lot of personal connection for what it’s like for those young people and the people who are in a similar situation to where they were.
“When young people come on board with us, quite often they begin by thinking they know exactly where they want to be but end up finding that their feelings change. They tend to stick with us for a considerable time until they are ready to step into their next role.
“What they give back to the communities is worth its weight in gold.”