Sportivate Delivers Benefits for Young People in the Black Country

In late 2012, Black Country BeActive Partnership commissioned the undertaking of an 8 month Social Return on Investment (SROI) evaluation of the Sportivate Programme in the Black Country.  The report was officially launched last week at a celebration evening for all our Sportivate deliverers, where we were able to showcase some good practice from the programme as well as the findings of the report.

Since the programme launched in 2011, we have engaged 5,802 young people age 14 to 25 in sportivate delivery across the Black Country.  This has resulted in 32,527 attendances with 1,341 young people sustained in sport 3 months after their initial programme has finished.  This is positive news for the Black Country and will play some part to helping us to increase the currently low sport participation levels.

Some of the findings within the report have demonstrated that Sportivate is also delivering health benefits and improving the confidence levels of participants, with over 90% of beneficiaries indicating that they felt healthier as a result of the coaching and there were a few specific examples of physical health impacts.

Black Country BeActive Partnership’s new Chairman, Dr Raj Joshi commented on the publication: "The report provides compelling evidence of the impact that the Partnership's Sportivate programme has had benefit in, not only encouraging more 14-25 year olds to take part in sport, but also it contributes to meeting other priorities, including reducing health and anti-social behaviour costs.  A return of £7.50 for every £1 of Sportivate investment is a testament of the importance of this programme”.

Suzanne Gardner, Commissioning Manager, and Project Manager for the Sportivate programme in the Black Country said, "The report and the return on investment figures highlight the valuable role that the Sportivate programme plays in contributing to wider societal outcomes, we believe that these impacts will continue to grow through a number of new projects being initiated with partners including the Police, Colleges, National Governing Bodies of Sport and local Sports Clubs, particularly now that the programme has lowered its target age to include 11 - 13 year olds. We would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of our project deliverer’s for all of their hard work in making the programme successful and look forward to seeing the impact of the exciting projects that are planned for year 4 of the programme”.

The evaluation report can be downloaded here.

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The Black Country BeActive Partnership is one of 49 County Sports Partnerships (CSPs) in England working to provide opportunities for people to participate in sport and physical activity across the Black Country.   The team and its partners aim to work together for all in the Black Country through PE, Sport and Physical Activity to inspire a generation to be active.

For more details on the SROI Report or Sportivate in the Black Country please contact Suzanne Gardner, Commissioning Manager on 01384 471120.

For more details on the work of the Black Country BeActive Partnership please contact Simon Hall, Partnership Director on 01384 471136.

Sportivate – Sportivate forms part of Places People Play, the £135 million mass participation London 2012 legacy plans unveiled by the Government in November 2010. At the time of this report being written the six year programme will see £56 million invested to give 14-25 year-olds who are not particularly sporty access to six to eight weeks’ of free or subsidised coaching in a range of sports. The age range for the programme changed from September 2013 to provide opportunities for 11 – 25 year olds. There are a wide range of activities on offer including judo, golf, tennis, wakeboarding, athletics, and free running.

For media enquiries regarding this release please contact Joanne Taylor on 01384 471139