Wesport are pleased to announce the continuation of funding from Sport England for the Satellite Clubs community sport and physical activity programme. Delivering the programme for over 5 years has seen Wesport link with over 90 local delivery partners who enable us to reach young people in communities across the West of England.

Wesport have been linking with non-traditional partners in an aim to reach the target audience of young people aged 14 – 19 who are inactive. Links with local community partners, youth organisations and Avon and Somerset Police have seen some exciting projects developed with multiple partners aiming to meet the requirements of the satellite club programme. New projects targeted for the current funded period have included more multi partnership approaches, this enables us to ensure that:

Hartcliffe and Withywood Community Partnership HWCP Football sees Steffan, a local community development worker accessing training to complete his Level 1 FA accreditation. This enables the right deliverer who already has access and is trusted by the local community to be appropriately trained in order to deliver social football sessions. Through his partnership working, Steffan has also secured free facilities from the local school which has seen the funding for venue hire reinvested into more training opportunities for the participants in the club.

Campus Sk8 in Weston-super-Mare was born from a significant rise in anti-social behaviour at a local council facility. The council recognised the situation and were aware of an appropriate partner who had already started to do some ground work by way of consultation with young people in the area. Supported by local Police, community groups and the venue, Locking Castle Church developed an engagement programme that supported the issues raised by all the partners consulted.

Traditional partners from existing sport clubs are still a constant source of support for the satellite clubs programme. Projects being delivered by these partners include:

• Tickenham Golf are running inclusive sessions delivered at Portishead Youth Club in North Somerset. The golf club are delivering skill sessions to a group of young people with complex and additional needs. See more about this satellite club here.
• Bristol Storm Basketball are reaching young people on the outskirts of the city centre of Bristol by delivering pop up sessions in Multi Use Games Areas (MUGA’s) before starting their residency at City Academy for a consistent home in the winter.

For the next funded period of April 2019 – 2020, Wesport are looking to work with partners who can support inactive young people from the following target groups:

• People in lower socio-economic groups
  • Those in routine / semi - routine jobs and those who are long term unemployed or have never worked (NS-SEC 6 -8) are the most likely to be inactive (33%) and the least likely to be active (54%). We assume that young people in families or care of lower socio-economic groups are more likely to be inactive. 
• Women and girls
  • There are still significantly more men who are likely to be active than women. Nationally there is still a gap of 317,000 men who are more active than women (ALS May 2018).
• Young people with a disability
  • Inactivity is more common for those with a disability or health condition than those without. Furthermore, it increases sharply as the number of impairments an individual has increases - 50% of those with three or more impairments are inactive.

First phase of funding for projects who can deliver from April 2019, is now OPEN the deadline for these projects to submit applications will be Monday 25^th February 2019. Funding is limited to support a small number of projects, there will be an open process for applications after this first phase has been allocated.

Year 6 Phase 1 April 2019 – March 2020

Year 6 Phase 2 April 2020 – March 2021