Dr Alan Billings spent the morning with South Yorkshire Sport on Tuesday, 11 August, finding out how they engage with young people through sporting activities.

The Commissioner visited their offices at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield and took the opportunity to meet the team and hand over a cheque for £5,000 grant funding from his community grant scheme to their Director of Operations, Helen Marney.

He said:  “This funding provided to South Yorkshire Sport is to be used for young people aged between eight and 25-years-old in particular communities to enable them to get involved in sport through the SportFX South Yorkshire programme.

“The programme is currently running successfully across 17 schools, enabling up to 2,000 young people to take part in football. It is run with volunteer football coaches and Police Community Support Officers.  The new funding is to ensure that boxing sessions in four schools across Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield become sustainable.”

South Yorkshire Sport is one of the 45 County Sport Partnerships in England which bring together providers of sport and physical activity – such as National Governing Bodies, Local Authorities, Schools, Colleges, universities and local clubs – in order to increase the number and quality of opportunities for sport across a county area. The charity’s main objectives are to encourage as many people to take part in sport and remove the barriers that prevent people taking part, with a particular focus on young people, women and girls and people with disabilities.

South Yorkshire Sport through SportFX South Yorkshire effectively engage with young people in communities where there are high levels of reported anti-social behaviour using sport as a vehicle.  They bring communities together, provide diversionary activity, create young leadership opportunities and develop significant positive relationships between South Yorkshire Police, young people and their communities.

South Yorkshire Sport Director of Operations Helen Marney said: “We are delighted to accept this funding on behalf of the SportFX South Yorkshire programme. The funding will be crucial in ensuring the programme continues to grow and further embeds itself as a longer term initiative for the provision of sport to young people within our most vulnerable communities. South Yorkshire Sport is committed to enabling sport to be accessible to young people and in the power of sport to inspire young people to get involved in positive activity in their communities, both of which are principles that sit as cornerstones to the SportFX programme.”