Blackpool FC Community Trust column: Ready to serve our community again in 2021

Let’s hope 2021 proves to be safe and prosperous for all and sees us get back to some form of normality very soon.

The break also gave me time to reflect on a year which was certainly the most challenging of my career but which included some real successes as new provisions were developed and existing programmes sustained.

And most importantly, we had no redundancies or cuts to our services, despite the financial and operational difficulties the pandemic caused, meaning we can continue to support our community.

This hasn’t been the case at every football club charity, and it was possible here thanks largely to the trustees, who maintained strict governance and a strong level of charitable security long before the issues of last year, allowing us to build financial reserves, a very strong management structure and a fantastic delivery team.

We have also built some great partnerships, which have allowed us to access significant funding and to diversify our provisions.

With our strong understanding of the needs of our community, we have been able to keep all staff working and haven’t utilised the furlough scheme since August.

The year’s significant successes include the following:

Record numbers of students enrolled at our BFC Sports College, with almost 100 now studying BTEC and Degree programmes with us full-time. We were the national leader on recruitment and delivery of Autumn NCS, with 471 young completing the digital programme (the second- highest had 250.)

We developed a whole new strand of work in Community Cohesion, focusing on youth work and mentoring young people who are at risk of engaging in crime.

We developed a new strand with primary schools, focused on PHSE (Personal, Health and Social Education), and hope to expand this.

We delivered an amazing Christmas Campaign, raising more than £82,000 to make sure all children receive a gift on Christmas Day. We had made plans to continue our services in tier four but we now find ourselves in another full national lockdown.

We have had to close the offices down and all delivery spaces at Bloomfield Road, asking all staff to work from home, which is very difficult considering the work we do.

We have had to review all our services, contact funders and consider the personal circumstances of staff to understand what we can and cannot do for the next 6-12 weeks.

All face-to-face physical activity sessions must be postponed but many of these groups can continue virtually, including Sporting Memories, Vets, Healthy Hearts and PL Kicks.

Our mental health football sessions GetSet2Go have become GetSet2Talk and will meet virtually too.

BFC Sports College students now face the tough task of receiving their education virtually. We have made sure every student has a laptop at home and teachers will continue a normal timetable with virtual classes (not just setting the students work to do themselves).

We are developing a host of ways to keep students engaged, with group sessions and professional workshops with ex-players and others in the profession to highlight opportunities to work in football.

We have unfortunately had to postpone our next Traineeship programmes for 16-24 year-olds because we cannot provide work placements with so many businesses closed.

We are looking into the possibility of continuing to support local primary schools with our PL Primary Stars, Fit2Go and Unstoppable programmes, and secondary schools with our PL Inspires and new mental health provisions. If the schools continue to need our support, staff will attend in person or virtually.

Our Disability Inclusion team will also be digitising many of their sessions for adults and will be looking to maintain activity sessions for younger participants in person.

We are allowed to continue our youth work services, including Tower Above, which are needed more than ever. Staff will meet young people one-to-one and continue to support their needs, as will be the case with our Divert, United Together and Digital Youth work programmes.

Our tackling isolation programme, Pool Together, now becomes even more important. This will see staff make phone calls and door step visits, and set up virtual groups for those most isolated and shielding, so they have some contact with the outside world and maintain a willingness to re-engage in programmes once the lockdown is lifted.

I think this new lockdown has taken us all by surprise after all the positive news about vaccinations. We as Blackpool FC Community Trust will now adapt to support our community and help to keep people’s spirits high.

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