Towards Sport is a national programme building evidence on how and when sport can reduce offending and genuinely help the most vulnerable children and young people.
Sport is often talked about as a “nice to have”, but for young people within the context of youth offending, it can be a powerful route to stability, confidence and opportunity. However, until now, the evidence showing how and why sport makes a difference, especially for young people facing these vulnerabilities, has been limited.
Sport is already part of the system supporting children and young people. The question is whether it is being used intentionally, consistently and effectively?
The impact of community sport
Towards Sport is about changing that. By investing in a rigorous and structured evaluation, the ambition of the programme is to help clearly and confidently demonstrate the impact that well-designed community sport can have.
Delivered in partnership with the Youth Endowment Fund (YEF), the programme is focused on building strong, reliable evidence about the role that intentionally designed sport can play in young people’s lives. In particular, it explores how sport can help improve social and emotional development, support physical activity and wellbeing, and reduce offending and reoffending behaviour.
As programme lead my ambition is clear: to move sport-based interventions from having a limited evidence base to one that is robust, trusted and recognised nationally.
Towards Sport also aims to strengthen decision making around inclusive prevention strategies for young people. The programme brings together nine Local Authority areas, spanning Early Help services and Youth Justice / Youth Offending Teams, alongside 54 Delivery Partner Organisations delivering sport to young people with secondary and tertiary vulnerabilities.
This matters not just for the young people involved, but for decision makers who shape services, funding and policy at a local and national level.
StreetGames’ role
StreetGames is leading the delivery of Towards Sport, working closely with a wide partnership of organisations across the country to coordinate delivery, support partners, and ensure learning is captured and shared across the system.
Investing in the foundations
Before we can know whether sport really helps young people who are struggling, the right foundations have to be in place. Towards Sport ensures sport is delivered properly, through trusted local services, so its impact can be tested in the real world. This includes:
- Around £1.2m invested directly into doorstep sport provision
- 2,000+ children and young people expected to engage in sessions across the life of the programme
- Around 400 children and young people accessing sessions through direct referral routes
- Programme training for approximately 1,000 practitioners, strengthening understanding of how sport can support young people facing vulnerability
This creates a strong bridge between community sport and local services as part of the national evidence building process. Now more than ever this is important when viewed through Sport England’s new priorities of children and young people from low-affluence households and those people who live in the top 25% places of greatest need, and moreover, the Governments launch of their young people strategy Youth Matters.
How we’re building evidence
The programme is being delivered through a Randomised Control Trial (RCT), widely recognised as the gold standard for evaluation. All children and young people involved receive business‑as‑usual support, with half also offered an additional, intentionally designed sport intervention delivered by trusted community sport organisations.
By comparing outcomes across both groups, we hope to be able to clearly evidence the added value of sport, backed by high-quality data and insight.
We are pleased to confirm that 842 children and young people have now been successfully recruited into the trial. Reaching full recruitment is a major milestone for Towards Sport, marking a critical step in building a stronger evidence base for sport.
Long‑term ambition
Towards Sport is about much more than a single programme. While delivery will continue into October 2026, and the final evaluation report is due in 2028, the learning and impact will last well beyond this timeline.
Our long-term ambition is to see sport firmly embedded as a trusted, evidence led part of the system supporting children and young people. This includes:
- Embedding sport‑based approaches within Local Authority strategies and long-term plans
- Building stronger, more connected relationships between community sport providers and practitioners working in youth justice, early help and other vulnerability spaces
- Securing sustainable investment to grow and scale approaches that are proven to work
- Using robust evidence to influence policy, commissioning and future decision-making
By engaging now, leaders can help ensure that future policy and funding decisions are shaped by robust evidence, and that sport is recognised as a credible, preventative tool where it is proven to work.
As evidence builds, there is a real opportunity for policymakers, commissioners and partners to work together to translate learning into lasting change.
Towards Sport is a collective effort, bringing together young people, communities, practitioners and decision makers to build better systems and brighter futures through the power of sport. I am very pleased and proud to have played my part, and excited to explore how we can all build on its learning.