Good practice
In addition to the projects and schemes summarised below, you can find further details and more examples of good practice in community cohesion in our dedicated good practice resource.
London Borough of Tower Hamlets Olympic Summer of Sport
A programme of sport sessions inspired by the 2012 Olympic bid and is designed to take advantage of the local enthusiasm and publicity for the Olympics. It targets children and families from deprived areas. Sessions are themed around the 26 Olympic and 12 Paralympic sports encouraging participation by previously under-represented children and young people. The programme also includes a number of targeted sports events including an Asian Sports Festival featuring traditional sports such as Kabbadi and wrestling as well as a Disabled Sports Festival and the recently acclaimed Estate Based Sports Programme aimed at reducing anti -social behaviour amongst young people.
Burnley Borough Council - Football Development Group
This group has been tasked to produce a development plan for football for the Borough. The document is the plan for Burnley. The development plan also links to the Playing Pitch Strategy that has identified the need to develop quality and modern football facilities across the Borough. The development plan also identified the need to have a specific development officer for the sport because football has a new dimension emerging which is centred on the broader social impact that football can have and particularly its capacity for generating a ‘sense' of community and empowerment amongst groups who are typically seen as ‘excluded' from mainstream society. Therefore a Community Football Development Officer was appointed.
Leicester City Council
Leicester's political leadership is effectively engaged on sport and cultural issues and has for many years championed diversity and the needs of hard to reach groups. For example, councillors set up a community cohesion funding stream used this summer for a programme of inter-cultural sporting activities, partly in response to emerging community tensions between Somali and African Caribbean young people. More than 200 young people took part in the Street Sports finale bringing together young people from 5 deprived communities.
Sunderland City Council - The Raich Carter Sports Centre
The Raich Carter Sports Centre is a community sports hub which sits in New Deal for Communities (NDC) area with £54m regeneration funding. It is a Sport England Pathfinder Multi Sports Environment and a national model of excellence. The area is home to 9,434 residents in 4,000 households. One tenth of the population are from BME groups, predominantly Bangladeshi, 48% of working age households have no-one in paid employment, 16% of over 16s are long term sick or disabled (national average 5%) and the area has some of the highest incidences of coronary heart disease, lung cancer deaths, teenage pregnancies in the city and region.
Oldham Unity in the Community Sport Programme
Unity in the Community is an imaginative community cohesion initiative across 50 plus primary / secondary schools. It links schools of a variety of backgrounds to allow communities to connect through sport in a safe, fun structured environment and impact on changing attitudes of young people in the borough. Children are then actively encouraged to attend further sporting opportunities such as Active Sport sessions, Greater Manchester Youth Games, Open for Action holiday courses and junior club sessions.
Saltaire Cricket Club, Bradford
At a time when many clubs in the Bradford area have still been unable to sustain a mixed playing and non playing membership, Saltaire Cricket Club has managed to achieve a mix in its teams from the Asian and White communities, from the youngest children at 8 and 9 years old to the senior teams. Other clubs are starting to make inroads and the the propspects are brighter than for a number of years. This has now been sustained at Saltaire for a numbers of years and there are several different stands to the club's ability to achieve this.
Nottinghamshire County Council- Social Capital Development Sport Action Zone
Social Capital Development SAZ's Needs Assessment recognises that projects to improve access to sport and leisure are best developed at a local, preferably Neighbourhood level, yet in C2DE former Coalfield Communities there is sometimes and absence of social capital, which hinders groups from accessing grants and support. The 4 NRF areas in the Zone have all recognised the power of sport in developing neighbourhood cohesion. We undertake work with and where necessary join the committees of various organisations to overcome barriers.
Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council
In response to the shared priorities of the local strategic partnership and agreed objectives, Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council set about its target to deliver a first class sport and recreation facility base within the borough, to be underpinned by a comprehensive, community sport & recreation programme for ALL.
Following a needs analysis in 2003 an Open Space Sport and Recreation Strategy was developed. This in turn led to the programme of delivering a set of new and enhanced facilities, together with an appropriate sports development programme. The project co-ordinater developed close working relationships with the various sporting bodies, local sporting group's users and future users to help determine the exact nature of sports provision.
The culmination of the work led to the Council approving the development of a new multi sport "sports village" in the north of Shrewsbury, meeting a key objective within the Community Strategy (Health & Well Being).
Charnwood Borough Council- Sports Links project
The Sports-Link Project is a partnership between the Council, Charnwood Arts, Sport England, Leicestershire Constabulary, Charnwood Council for Voluntary Service, Leicestershire Youth Service and Charnwood Racial Equality Council. The partnership arose as a result of effective initiatives across Charnwood through the local community cohesion agenda and the successful work of Connecting Communities, another partnership commissioned under the Home Office "Resolving Differences" programme for the East Midlands. These relationships have been sustained through the Charnwood Community Cohesion Pathfinder Programme. The SLPO continuously works in partnership with community providers and community members to develop and create projects and opportunities for specific communities.
Charnwood Borough Council - The Global All Stars
The Global All-Stars is a football project, which aims to promote unity and friendship to undertake work around cultural and personal differences and cohesion. The concept of the project is to create a ‘World United' football team consisting of participants living in Charnwood from different cultural backgrounds. Young people were chosen from teams at the World Cup Football Camp in 2003 to represent the Global All-Stars Team.
Darlington Borough Council - Westside project: tackling anti-social behaviour
This pilot project is delivered at a local comprehensive school on a Friday evening in one of Darlington's Priority wards, deemed a hot spot area for anti social behaviour. The purpose of the project is to provide diversionary leisure activities for young people.
Darlington Borough Council - Darlington School Sport Partnership
As part of the Government's PE and School Sport Strategy, the Darlington SSP was implemented in September of 2002 across approximately half of the schools (including Beaumont Hill Special School) in the town. The SSP programme has five key principles: support for PE in schools, integrated sports development and partnership working, focus on disadvantage and inclusion in schools, working together with families, and a whole school approach.
London Borough of Southwark - Southwark Community Games
Southwark Community Games is a council-led partnership initiative that continues to build on its success.
The Southwark Community Games is a year round programme of sports coaching and competition for young people aged seven to 16 years old.
There is also sport related vocational training for teachers and young people aged sixteen years and older. It takes place across the eight community council areas in schools, after school clubs, estate and community settings.
Preston City Council - disability sports development
Preston Panthers was Lancashire's first disabled multi-sports club for young people. Since its establishment in 1998 it has expanded and developed and now has a membership base of 65 young people who attend weekly sessions at West View Leisure Centre and an annual residential course in outdoor pursuit activities in the Lake District.
A second Disability Sports Club has also been established in partnership with Preston Primary Care Trust specifically for those with co-ordination difficulties.
The Maimonides Foundation, London
The Maimonides Foundation is a joint Jewish-Muslim interfaith organisation, which fosters understanding, dialogue, and co-operation between Jews and Muslims through cultural, academic and educational programmes based on mutual respect and trust. It has an active education programme which runs a number of projects and events for young people of Jewish and Muslim faith.
Tottenham Hotspur Community: Coaching Programme in Partnership with Haringey Neighbourhood Management
During February half-term 2006, Tottenham Hotspur Community (THC) provided opportunities for over 750 young people aged six to 18 years to participate in a structured coaching programme in a safe and friendly environment.
West Ham United Football Club: Partnership with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets
A pioneering project to improve participation in football, in deprived, inner city, multi cultural areas. The coaching programmes are open to all children in the borough aged 7-11 years old, regardless of ethnicity, gender or disability; though targeting young Asian players is a key objective given the lack of opportunities that have historically been available them.
Tameside Sport Development
Tameside Sports Development has responsibility for the development of a network of sports opportunities across the Borough. The main aspects of development work are directly linked to Tameside's Community Plan, Tameside's Cultural Strategy and Government led recommendations and initiatives with Sport Development seeing its role as a constantly changing mixture of direct provision and facilitation.
Haringey Warriors Youth Organisation summer sports camp and end of summer tournament
The HWYO summer sports camp and end of summer tournament 2005 took place between July 25th and August 26th 2005. For the first time, the camp was brought to Priory Park .The sports camp offered the children and young people an exciting, fun, new experience that they would otherwise not have had during their summer holidays. HWYO puts emphasis on providing professional, top quality coaching and youth mentoring to children and young people.
Under the expert guidance of our coaching team the children and young people have been able to create new friendships and engage with young people from different cultures.
Hounslow Community Cohesion Focus/Awaaz Football Team
This project is a good example of how one can use sport to bring young people together.
Hounslow suffers from an unfortunate polarisation of young people within the borough, central Hounslow having large South Asian and Somalian communities, whilst the west of the borough, areas like Feltham are predominantly white. This also seems to be reflected in the schools young people go to, leading to a lack of social mixing and therefore a lack of tolerance and understanding.
This was also reflected in the football teams, Awaaz and Focus. Starting with both teams going to tournaments together in the same mini bus but playing in their own teams, there is now one football team.
