Blackpool FC Community Trust Column: Providing all the support we can for second lockdown

BFCCT continues to work with its community partners to serve the people of Blackpool

As you can imagine, a large part of this week has been spent investigating which of our BFCCT programmes can continue during the November lockdown, which will need to be postponed and what the implications of that will be.

We can continue our work in local schools, so our PL Primary Stars, Fit2Go and Unstoppable programmes will be delivered in primary schools over the next four weeks and our PL Inspires programme will continue in secondary schools as well as our Children in Need sessions in our local special schools.

Our BFC Sports College can also remain open, so our BTEC and degree students can continue to be supported appropriately and also our Traineeship students, all with in person support.

We will also be able to continue with our mentor programmes Tower Above, Divert and United Together as all are focused on one-to-one work, which we will undertake outdoors.

We will, however, have to postpone our Kicks sessions, Waking Football, Vets Football, Ladies’ Healthy Hearts sessions, Get Set to Go and FitFans groups from meeting face-to-face.

We will take all of these provisions online and set up additional virtual groups to add to our extra time, sporting memories and other groups that have remained online over the past few months. Hopefully, meeting in person will resume for all these groups next month.

Please keep up to date with the new sessions for November via our website and social media platforms.

Once again the staff have been tremendous in diversifying our provisions and in their willingness to continue finding ways to support our local community.

We will also continue to support those isolated and shielding via our Tackling Isolation project and will work closely with local partners, including Blackpool Council to support those most in need.

At this point, we have no plans to reintroduce the furlough scheme for staff and remain committed to keeping our full workforce available full-time throughout November. We are here and committed to helping.

ASHLEY HACKETT (CEO)