An EPIC multisport offer for young people in Thanet

Case Study

For young people living in Thanet, Kent, opportunities to take part in high quality sport and physical activity are all too often extremely limited – particularly for those living in the district’s most underserved areas. 

To address this inequality of opportunity, the Coastal Wellbeing coordinator, working within the Regeneration team at Thanet District Council, convened a meeting of like-minded stakeholders with the aim of creating an accessible sport and physical activity offer for those local residents who typically face the most significant barriers to being active. The group designed ‘EPIC Street Sports’: a vibrant and varied multi-sport programme that would engage the target group over six weeks of the summer to help them to get up, get out and get active in their own neighbourhood. This was piloted and funded by Thanet District Council as part of the Margate Town Deal Coastal Wellbeing activities, which aim to test what communities want to engage in along this stretch of coastline to improve their health and wellbeing.

The EPIC programme has seen a variety of local community organisations come together each Friday evening at a local green space by the former Cliftonville Lido, providing a wide range of activities including basketball, dodgeball, skateboarding, street dance, pickleball, archery, boxing and table tennis. The provision of a variety of options is a central tenet of the Doorstep Sport approach, and has been key in enabling the EPIC programme to engage previously inactive children and young people.

Over the six weeks of summer provision, the programme saw more than 570 individual attendances, with an average of 95 attendances each week. The majority of participants were aged between 9 and 15, with more than half hailing from culturally diverse backgrounds.

The feedback from young people taking part in EPIC has been overwhelmingly positive:

‘I feel like I belong here’

‘Lots of fun to choose what we want to do with no pressure’

‘Coaches really supportive and fun’

Due to the success of EPIC and the demand for similar Doorstep Sport programmes, Thanet District Council is working hard to secure further investment to enable them to continue to deliver during the autumn and winter months, providing an all-important year-round offer for the local community.

Natasha Brown, Coastal Wellbeing Coordinator, said: “This is the second time we have tried to deliver a six-week programme of activities to engage Cliftonville’s young people in sport. The first time only a few primary aged children and their parents joined in. This time, we spoke to young people in Cliftonville first, to find out what they wanted, and how we could deliver this. From what they told me, I needed to replicate the Battersea Games, on a shoestring budget, every week! By partnering with Scorcha Skate School, Yo Street Zone and Positive State, I am proud that I got as close to that vision as I could for them.

“Moving the activities to the playpark made a big difference because we took the activity to the young people rather than asking them to come to us. By building a programme of interesting and different activities, like archery or the climbing wall, we really got their attention. One week I arrived at 4.30pm and there were already 20 kids playing while Positive State was still setting up. It was a lot of work for our facilitators to build each week but it was so rewarding to see so many young people out having fun with parents and carers and younger children there as well.

“It is really important for the council to start building trust in this community so they feel like someone cares about and will listen to them. If I could run this again I’d love to have free healthy food and drinks to give away so that we knew they had eaten a nutritious meal going into the weekend. Though we were able to reach so many young people this summer, we need to get funding to keep them safe and active through the winter as well.”

James Gregory, StreetGames Area Director for London and the South East, said: “EPIC is a fantastic example of Doorstep Sport in action, and is testament to what can be achieved through collaborative working between local organisations – as well as the power of taking sport to the doorstep of young people, as opposed to expecting young people to find more mainstream opportunities at traditional clubs. The programme is already having a tangible positive impact on young people in Thanet, and we look forward to supporting it as it continues to flourish.”

Partners involved: Thanet District Council, Positive State CIC, Yo Street Zone, Northdown Family Hub, East Kent College Sports Graduates, Wisewoods Street Dance, Charlton Athletic, Scorcha Skate School, Sweet Caroline’s Cafe.

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