New £40m Fund to get Families Active

Via Sport England

More than 15,000 families could benefit from new funding spread across 22 projects around England.

Families living in refuge having suffered domestic abuse will be just some of the potential 15,000 families who will benefit from a £40 million investment from Sport England.

The National Lottery fund has been allocated by us to 22 projects around the country whose aim it is to bring families closer together through sport and physical activity.

Manchester’s The Pankhurst Trust provides an empowering and safe space for women and families who have been victims of domestic violence. Some of the people they work with now live in refuges and they will be among the 700-plus families that will benefit from a grant of £441,929.

With four out of five primary school children not getting enough exercise and research showing that active parents can be positive role models, The Pankhurst Trust’s Elaine DeFries knows the money will make a real difference. 

Some of our families’ experiences have been negative – for many reasons. Some around domestic violence and sometimes because of the mental health issues that ensue because of that abuse. So, this will be a positive thing for the whole family to be involved in. It will strengthen family bonds, it will strengthen parent-child bonds and between siblings. It is about doing something together, which is therapeutic and healing and good for your health generally.”

The 22 projects we support will focus on helping families who are either on a low income, or have low levels of education or employment.

Parents and family members who are active themselves, and enjoy it, can encourage positive feelings about exercise and its value in their children. Yet many parents lack the skills or confidence to take part in sport with their children as they fear they cannot keep up.

Elaine added:

This project will help them embed in communities. It will help them with cohesion. It will help the wellbeing of the whole family, the children and the parents. There will be core families in refuge that we will work with really intensely because their needs are higher. They have had disrupted lives and have suffered, generally, the worst types of domestic abuse. But we’ve got lots and lots of other families in the community that we work with as a domestic abuse service. And they’ll all benefit as well.”

The Pankhurst Trust will provide intensive support to families, in order to shape their own sport and activity experiences. They will also provide access passes, travel, subsistence and incentives for completing a course of activity.

Each of the funded projects will tailor their work to the needs of those that they are helping, with, for example, Cambridgeshire County Council putting on an activity roadshow to enable low income families to try suitable sports, while Havant and East Hants Mind will provide an initial eight weeks of semi-structured free play to groups with low levels of mental wellbeing.

And Sport England's Director of Children and Young People, Jayne Molyneux, hopes each specific action plan will see an increase in physical activity among young children:

It’s not right that four in five children don’t get enough exercise and are missing out on the health benefits it brings,” she said.  Just by seeing their parents being active, children can be inspired to do the same, and if they have an enjoyable experience they’re far more likely to continue as an adult.  Parents have many demands on their time, and often lack the confidence to get active with their children. With this £40 million of National Lottery funding we hope to make getting active with your children an easy choice for thousands of families across the country.”

ENDS