Blackpool FC Community Trust column: We're going back to school

While our team have been working hard in the background to put plans in place, last Monday saw us return to local schools to start this season’s delivery of PL Primary Stars, Fit2Go, Unstoppable, PL Inspires and our Children in Need project for young people with disabilities.

PL Primary Stars supports schools to improve their standards of PE, with the majority of our focus being on supporting teachers and staff to increase their understanding and knowledge, and raise their motivation and confidence to deliver the subject to their pupils.

Fit2Go, which begins our 10th season of delivery, works with every year four pupil in Blackpool to understand the importance of living a healthy lifestyle.

That is done by delivering workshops focused on balanced diets, snacks and drinks, the importance of physical activity, and getting enough sleep at night.

Unstoppable is our mental health programme, which works with every year six pupil to increase their resilience and confidence to speak up on many issues.

Those include the transition from year six to year seven at school, family relationships, negative behaviours and involvement in gangs.

PL Inspires works with year nine pupils to support them in mentally preparing for the difficult exam timetable they have ahead of them in their journey through GCSEs.

Our Children in Need programme supports local young people with disabilities to engage in regular physical activity and sport.

We were also finally able to officially launch our ‘DIVERT’ programme, which focuses attention to delivery within custody suites and supporting people being released to engage in positive activities, with the intention to change their previous negative habits and crime engagements.

The programme started in March, but lockdown has meant we had to refocus the work.

This week saw us attend the custody suite in Blackpool for the first time and be prepared to develop a caseload of participants that are booked into the facility.

This actually means we only have two of our projects – out of almost 50 – that we have not been able to restart, these being our physical activities in local nurseries and also our community-based Tiny Tangerines.

Both are focused at early years but both delivered in indoor spaces, so we cannot deliver these while the FA guidance does not allow indoor football. Hopefully we’ll get some change in the restrictions soon.