Levelling the Playing Field researcher Hannah Hammond writes about the findings from the project so far - and highlights many crossovers with the seminal 2018 Sporting Chance review into sport in the secure estate.
The ‘pilot’ phase of Levelling the Playing Field will conclude in summer 2023, five years after the release of Professor Rosie Meek’s landmark report, A Sporting Chance: Independent Review of Sport in Youth and Adult Prisons.
Despite it being predominantly based on findings from the secure estate, there are striking similarities between the observations and recommendations in Prof. Meek’s report and those we are seeing in the community through Levelling the Playing Field (LtPF).
At this point in the research with the LtPF Interim Report having recently been published, four key similarities seem to stand out:
- A lack of data around disproportionality for ethnic minorities in sport
- The importance of multi-agency partnership working
- A need to improve monitoring and evaluation of sport-based programmes
- The need to promote good practice examples.
Prof. Meek’s review highlighted the unrecognised disproportionality in access to sport and physical activity for minority ethnic groups in the Justice System, recommending that physical activity participation and outcomes be properly monitored according to ethnicity to address this.
This disproportionality is reflected in community sport engagement amongst children and young people in the UK. But as with the secure estate, the full extent of underrepresentation from ethnic minorities in sport in unknown.
Sport England and Sport Wales provide us with the best understanding that we have for how active our children are outside of school, but this data consists of six categories for ethnicity, without any representation of ethnicity at a local level. Therefore, we cannot say what community sport participation looks like for children from individual ethnic minorities, or what the variations in engagement for such groups might be across different regions in the UK.
The children and young people engaged in community sport organisations supported by LtPF represent over 60 categories for ethnicity – and yet we still do not truly know the diversity of their ethnic backgrounds, cultures, and nationalities.
These sport organisations are often based in communities that have a strong distrust of statutory services resulting from decades of prejudice, and as such are reluctant to provide information on questions such as ethnicity or nationality.
Understanding the experiences of these individuals and where this distrust originates from is key to building relationships. The coaches and leaders at these sport organisations hold the key to this understanding. Through better trust we can gather more reliable data on engagement in sport and physical activity for children across all backgrounds and regions of the UK, informing us of the gaps in participation and where we need to do more.
Ultimately, these relationships break down barriers so minority communities can access the support and services which should be open to all.
Prof. Meek’s review emphasised the importance of partnerships between prisons, communities, sporting groups and bodies. LtPF has provided a space for those partnerships to develop where this does not already exist. These spaces facilitate conversations which put the child first, without any room for excuses or passing blame.
Third-sector sports organisations can voice their needs and statutory bodies have the opportunity to respond with offers of support from existing groups, forums, schemes or funding. The rhetoric of “we are here, just tell us what you need”, may seem like a helpful approach, but what these organisations really need is for services to come to them.
LtPF endeavours to bring youth justice services and community organisations together in spaces where sport is played, whether that be a football pitch inside a prison or a basketball court in the community. These relationships form best when the child is at the centre, so asking community sports coaches and youth workers to come to the offices of a statutory service may tick a box for some, but is unlikely to result in changes which benefit children who need support.
If statutory services can come into the community to experience a Wednesday night boxing session, engage in a group discussion about mental health or attitudes towards the police with young people in a youth club office, or advise a group of young volunteers who want to put on a football tournament at their local council-run leisure centre, they will gain a much deeper understanding of the needs of these organisations and the children they support.
This understanding extends beyond children and reaches deep into ethnic minority communities who have a historical distrust of statutory services. Leaders of LtPF delivery partners are embedded in their communities, and have the local knowledge needed to improve trust and communication.
The government response to Prof. Meek’s review promised to improve their monitoring and evaluation of sports-based programmes for a stronger evidence base and effective practice in the future which seeks to address disproportionality in sport and physical activity engagement within the secure estate.
These outcomes are precisely what we also hope to achieve in the community through the evaluation of LtPF. Using the Alliance of Sport’s Theory of Change as a framework, we aim to add to the evidence base around key stages in an organisation’s process of supporting desistance from crime. This includes a motivation-based theory to better understand what works in coach-led sessions to support children and young people’s mental wellbeing and individual development and a wealth of qualitative data to inform best practice around education and training, and social and community development.
Finally, the Sporting Chance review presents good practice examples of sport and physical activity delivery across the youth and adult estate, many of which are collaborative, innovative, and strength-based approaches. Celebrating these successes is crucial, and the review calls for better mechanisms for rewarding and sharing good practice.
The Alliance of Sport in Criminal Justice is recognised for promoting good practice examples into the community where sport helps to prevent crime and support desistance. The Alliance have amplified this work through LtPF with the communications team working tirelessly since the outset of the project to write and share over 100 case studies across multiple platforms, whilst the project team attend conferences and meetings to beat the drum of best practice in the field of sport for development. From a research perspective, we hope to continue this theme through the launch of the findings and reports in summer 2023.
>> Read the Levelling the Playing Field Interim Report here <<