Levelling the Playing Field was the catalyst for a partnership in Newport which brings key people together to support ethnically diverse children most effectively.
The city in Gwent, south east Wales, is one of Levelling the Playing Field’s four delivery areas and the embedding of the project there is being led by our strategic partners Newport Live.
Their creation of a local multi-agency partnership to maximise LtPF’s impact is proving to be a masterstroke in opening up new opportunities to engage and support young people from ethnic communities. By getting senior figures from Newport City Council, Newport Youth Justice Service, children’s services, the local police, schools, community projects, local sports leaders, Sport Wales, the Alliance of Sport and others around the table, it leaves no stone unturned in identifying local issues within ethnic diverse communities and then works together to find solutions.
For example, the partnership's collaborative work has led to Diversionary Officer Matthew Elliott from Newport Youth Justice working directly with children at LtPF sport sessions to intervene much earlier in young people’s lives, using the group’s combined expertise and local knowledge to identify and deal with issues which, if unaddressed, could potentially develop into more serious outcomes later in a child’s life.
The group also collaborate to deliver services where young people most need them. This can include identifying and supporting specific families, groups such as refugees and asylum seekers or whole communities such as Newport’s large Gypsy Roma Traveller population.
With this in mind, the group is currently seeking funding from Sport Wales to create a new job role at Newport Live to work in specific wards using sport to engage under-served communities.
The partnership is also using its combined local contacts to liaise with schools about creating more safe spaces for children to play in (for example, by schools making their playgrounds available out of school hours).
More examples of the group’s work include providing volunteering opportunities and mentoring training for 16-18-year-olds from the LtPF sessions run by The Sanctuary with refugees and asylum seekers. They are also helping their participants to join community football teams which many find difficult because they are not registered citizens or due to language barriers and lack of local contacts.
The group also arranged to take 19 ethnically diverse young people who attend Community Youth Project’s LtPF sessions to watch Dragons, the local professional rugby club, play in the United Rugby Championship to kindle their interest in rugby (one boy was so excited he was in tears!).
Gareth Moseley, Deputy Manager at Newport City Council, is a member of the group. He said: “This partnership has quickly become crucial to identifying where Levelling the Playing Field can support with specific families and communities. It’s about using the avenue of sport to improve the lives of ethnically diverse young people by giving them more opportunities and building support structures around them.”
Levelling the Playing Field’s mentoring training was the catalyst for bringing key people from multiple agencies face to face to discuss referrals, partnerships and solutions to reach Newport's ethnically diverse children collaboratively. Since then, Newport Live's Senior Development Officer Lucy Donovan has chaired the group brilliantly through the pandemic.
“That LtPF training has really kickstarted something so positive,” says Lucy. “It brings everyone to the table and we pinpoint issues happening in different parts of town and identify how we can help. These multi-agency relationships are crucial for intervention and engagement to be targeted and effective.”
Caroline Ryan-Phillips, Newport Children’s Services Manager, says LtPF and the resulting partnership has focused minds on the importance of including ethnically diverse groups as “core business rather than just an afterthought.”
She added: “Before Levelling the Playing Field, we’d never have brought people together like this. Progressive work is about building close working relationships. It’s about finding those key people who will influence their wider colleagues and partners. How are you going to offer the best possible provision if you don’t work in that way?
“I get very frustrated when services are not out there visibly in the right communities, building those relationships and engaging, like in traditional outreach youth work. We must show kids that they have choices. We must break that cycle – and sport and physical activity is a hugely valuable way of doing that.
“Sport is so important as a method of engaging ethnically diverse communities. It’s a great baseline for health and wellbeing, helps to build relationships, give children access to community role models and open up positive opportunities.”
Rudro Sen, Levelling the Playing Field Manager, said: “We are so pleased to see the way this group has developed organically, similarly to another collaboration between our local stakeholders in Coventry. It brings the experience and expertise of key players together to work towards our common goals.”