I have never seen some of these young people with smiles on their faces, to see them enjoying themselves and engaging in something so positve is wonderful.Sally Watson, Babergh District Council Anti Social Behavioral Network Officer
Babergh District Council is a small local authority in rural south Suffolk with limited resources. The local authority has demonstrated how strong leadership and creative partnerships can bring together a successful programme, which has significant impacts on disadvantaged young people and the wider community.
01. Overview
The Babergh Be Active Leisure Inclusion Service is a key programme of Babergh’s Leisure, Tourism, Arts and Culture service. It is designed to encourage vulnerable young people between the ages of 13 and 19 and people with disabilities to participate in active leisure and arts as a positive activity. It aims to reduce health inequalities and build self-confidence and skills. Through combining enforcement action with education and diversionary activities, it also aims to provide a pathway out of offending behaviour in the longer term.
The project began in 2002 as an 18-month pilot; however due to its positive impact and reach, with over 500 vulnerable young participants, Be Active became a permanent initiative as part of a dedicated community safety and leisure team. The service has since expanded to over fifty sports projects in various deprived neighbourhoods in South Suffolk, targeting individuals identified as ‘hard to reach’. Babergh works in partnership through referral schemes with schools, the police, housing associations, health departments, local youth clubs, youth offending services and the community itself to engage with this target group.
Since receiving Beacon status, Babergh has restructured the service team to include people with more diverse backgrounds and specialisms in anti-social behaviour enforcement, working with young people and community safety, and provide higher quality delivery. Through its innovative approach, Be Active has proven that culture and sport can make a difference in young people’s lives, and create strong, inclusive communities.
Aims and objectives
- To instill aspiration and confidence amongst those hard-to-reach through positive activities (NI 110)
- Reduce Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) and the youth offending rate, whilst changing the perception of ASB (NI 17)
- Promote tolerance and bridge the generational gap between the older and younger populations
- Promote healthy living and reduce health inequalities
- Raise individual and community ambition and encourage active citizen participation
For a full listing of National Indicators please see the National Indicators for Local Authorities and Local Authority Partnerships Handbook of Definitions.
Key Lessons
Getting the project up and running…
- Art of project planning: be very explicit about objectives, what you need to achieve these objectives, and realistic timescales, and develop a good solid action plan with indicator measures.
- Sustainability/building a legacy: think about interesting ways to get the community involved so that they can have ownership and help ensure that the project lasts beyond its funding period.
- Quality staff: For Babergh District Council, running a diversionary youth programme requires dedicated staff, tenacity and creativity. Hire enthusiastic staff who are interested and committed to public service and community development.
Making it a success…
- Flexibility: always allow room for flexibility and the freedom to be creative in designing projects to suit community needs.
- Quality services: it is important to always deliver good quality services in order to make impacts. Make sure that coaches, staff, and volunteers are enthusiastic, approachable and energetic. Recognise the need to be willing to take some risks in order that the service can strive to be the best it can be.
- Partnership: build a good rapport with all partners and most importantly the community.
Areas for improvement…
- Funding: access more funding to build capacity and provide a wider range of activities beyond sport.
- Evaluation: formalise a longitudinal tracking system of participants to follow their personal and professional progression, which can be used as another source of evidence to capture future funding.
- Intelligence: the need to always think outside the box and understand demographic changes in the community. Whilst the problems may broadly remain the same, one might need a new approach to tackling the issues.
