Sports Key are a valuable addition to Levelling the Playing Field’s network of Local Delivery Partners in the West Midlands. They use sport as a ‘magnet’ to attract people from their largely disadvantaged but hugely diverse local community, helping to make it more active, healthy and cohesive.
Founded five years ago by Jeavon Nicely and Daniel Allen, Sports Key host a programme of activities which currently includes football, badminton, netball, cycling and boxercise (with plans to expand into sports with traditionally low ethnic minority participation, such as golf and tennis).
Sports Key’s sessions, which take place mostly around the Perry Barr area of north-west Birmingham, are deliberately tailored to respond to local community members’ perceived barriers to sport participation. They are therefore offered on a ‘turn up and play’ basis, are open to all, safe, comfortable and welcoming, right on the doorstep and fronted by staff members volunteers from ethnically diverse backgrounds who live within the local community.
“We deliberately make our organisation very community-led,” says Jeavon, Sports Key’s Co-Founder and Community Youth Lead. “We have that kind of local audience on the frontline as volunteers and leaders, so they’re very visible when people come in through the door. Traditionally we have found there tends to be a gap between many organisations and local communities because of these sorts of reasons.”
He adds: “There’s evidence that ethnically diverse groups tend not to volunteer as much as white British people, so our volunteer programme is there to empower community members, raising their employability prospects and improving life skills.”
Participants range in age from 14 to 60+, but Sports Key’s initial Levelling the Playing Field-dedicated sessions will target young people and focus on football.
Jeavon, a former national-level junior athlete, began Sports Key alongside Daniel as an annual ‘community games’ event for local community sport groups. Although the annual ‘SK Games’ continue, a social enterprise business support consultant suggested they needed to turn it into something more sustainable, which is where Sports Key’s weekly sessions began.
Founded five years ago by Jeavon Nicely and Daniel Allen, Sports Key host a programme of activities which currently includes football, badminton, netball, cycling and boxercise (with plans to expand into sports with traditionally low ethnic minority participation, such as golf and tennis).
Sports Key’s sessions, which take place mostly around the Perry Barr area of north-west Birmingham, are deliberately tailored to respond to local community members’ perceived barriers to sport participation. They are therefore offered on a ‘turn up and play’ basis, are open to all, safe, comfortable and welcoming, right on the doorstep and fronted by staff members volunteers from ethnically diverse backgrounds who live within the local community.
“We deliberately make our organisation very community-led,” says Jeavon, Sports Key’s Co-Founder and Community Youth Lead. “We have that kind of local audience on the frontline as volunteers and leaders, so they’re very visible when people come in through the door. Traditionally we have found there tends to be a gap between many organisations and local communities because of these sorts of reasons.”
He adds: “There’s evidence that ethnically diverse groups tend not to volunteer as much as white British people, so our volunteer programme is there to empower community members, raising their employability prospects and improving life skills.”
Participants range in age from 14 to 60+, but Sports Key’s initial Levelling the Playing Field-dedicated sessions will target young people and focus on football.
Jeavon, a former national-level junior athlete, began Sports Key alongside Daniel as an annual ‘community games’ event for local community sport groups. Although the annual ‘SK Games’ continue, a social enterprise business support consultant suggested they needed to turn it into something more sustainable, which is where Sports Key’s weekly sessions began.
The thread that’s been there throughout their existence is listening and responding to local community need. Jeavon offers the example of Afro-Caribbean women whose feedback around barriers to sport were ‘time, motherhood and hair’. Concerns about sport ruining expensive hairstyles was a big thing for them. “Bar having a hairdresser on site it’s a difficult thing to overcome,” admits Jeavon, “but we focused on simply making our organisation reflective of them and making them feel as comfortable as possible when they do attend our sessions.”
He adds: “Our participants tell us they come here to get more physically active and make more friends – and when we look at our retention rates, we see that once they start coming, they keep coming back.
“We make it easy to integrate within our environment. We are definitely increasing cohesion across a diverse audience and raising awareness of their physical and mental health and wellbeing.”
From March 2019-March 2020 (up until Covid lockdown), Sports Key had 250 participants attend their sessions, which mostly take place at the Doug Ellis Sports Centre at Birmingham City University. They have recently been awarded funding from the National Lottery Community Fund, through the Corona Virus Community Support Fund, which has created another full time role to deliver a six month recovery programme
Although they currently use UpShot to record data, Jeavon says that joining Levelling the Playing Field will enable them to record, monitor and assess their impact much more thoroughly.
“That was one of the main selling points,” he admits. “Within our capacity we collect our data but we’re not always able to present it in a way which demonstrates the actual impact in the best way. To work with a professional who specialises in that area will be a great addition to what we’re doing already, especially when we’re looking to apply for more funding over the next six or 12 months.”
In turn, that data will contribute to Levelling the Playing Field’s ever-growing evidence base, enabling us to identify and build on good practice in improving the health and life prospects of disadvantaged children from diverse communities across England and Wales.
He adds: “Our participants tell us they come here to get more physically active and make more friends – and when we look at our retention rates, we see that once they start coming, they keep coming back.
“We make it easy to integrate within our environment. We are definitely increasing cohesion across a diverse audience and raising awareness of their physical and mental health and wellbeing.”
From March 2019-March 2020 (up until Covid lockdown), Sports Key had 250 participants attend their sessions, which mostly take place at the Doug Ellis Sports Centre at Birmingham City University. They have recently been awarded funding from the National Lottery Community Fund, through the Corona Virus Community Support Fund, which has created another full time role to deliver a six month recovery programme
Although they currently use UpShot to record data, Jeavon says that joining Levelling the Playing Field will enable them to record, monitor and assess their impact much more thoroughly.
“That was one of the main selling points,” he admits. “Within our capacity we collect our data but we’re not always able to present it in a way which demonstrates the actual impact in the best way. To work with a professional who specialises in that area will be a great addition to what we’re doing already, especially when we’re looking to apply for more funding over the next six or 12 months.”
In turn, that data will contribute to Levelling the Playing Field’s ever-growing evidence base, enabling us to identify and build on good practice in improving the health and life prospects of disadvantaged children from diverse communities across England and Wales.