Sporting Elite are a fine example of how sport can act as a powerful deterrent against ethnically diverse young people becoming involved in crime.
Combining football sessions with informal mentoring, access to local role models and opportunities in education and employment, Sporting Elite are achieving positive outcomes for 14 to 18-year-olds in the West Midlands who may otherwise be at risk of becoming involved in the Criminal Justice System.
Huge inequalities remain in the numbers of ethnically diverse children entering the justice system and in custody, but recent Youth Justice Board statistics offered “a glimmer of hope” that this disproportionality is easing.
Levelling the Playing Field was set up to harness the power of sport and physical activity for precisely this purpose, and the work of our specialist partners such as Sporting Elite in diverting and preventing ethnically diverse children from becoming involved in the justice system is vital.
We know that such work – when evidenced, funded and upscaled – has the potential to achieve so much more.
“We know we’re making a difference and that organisations like ours do have a major impact,” said Sporting Elite founder Seb Hamilton.
"We’re not saying we can fix everything, but by using sport we can help steer young people in the right direction when the other influences around them might not always be positive.”
Sporting Elite run evening and weekend football sessions in the community (at Star City in the Nechells area of Birmingham) with leagues and prizes which motivate young people to attend, work as a team and engage with coaching staff and mentors. They also receive referrals from schools and agencies to help support individuals.
At their community sessions at a local Goals five-a-side centre, Seb and his team have informal conversations, get to know the individual personalities, find out what is going on in their lives, their issues and how they can be supported.
Seb explained: “Some may just want to let off steam on the pitch, others may have school, family or girlfriend issues, and for others their level of support might need to go a bit deeper.”
Sporting Elite successfully applied for the Ministry of Justice’s Youth Justice Sport Fund to help continue to fund staff, venue hire and prizes for its sessions, which amount to almost £20,000 for its Friday night session alone (which has up to 100 weekly participants).
The impact cannot be doubted – and one example alone from Sporting Elite shows how community sport organisations can contribute towards reductions in youth crime.
Seb highlights one young player who disclosed to Sporting Elite staff during informal chats that he had a new job. The details sounded suspiciously like he was being lured into county lines activity. Sporting Elite mentors alerted parents and school safeguarding officer and together they were able to guide that young person away from danger.
“That young person did his exams, is now at college and we have worked on some goal-setting techniques with him. He is very ambitious and wants to set up his own business,” says Seb.
This is effective diversion in action, with sport at its heart.
With others, the impact may be ‘softer’. For example, young people who have attended Sporting Elite’s evening sessions have progressed to playing for Saturday or Sunday teams, so their weekly participation has gone from two hours to up to 10, with training and matches. They have joined in with players from other postcodes who may otherwise have been ‘rivals’ on the streets. “That is always good to see,” says Seb.
He added: “What young people know they will get at our sessions is a friendly face and a safe place to talk about any issues. We form positive relationships and find out where we can take them next in their lives.”