Positive Futures is a national programme managed by Crime Concern on behalf of the Home Office with the focused objective of engaging disenchanted children and young people in sport as an alternative to hanging about the streets, doing drugs and getting involved in crime.
The task of persuading truanting teenagers who are kicking a Coke can in a parking lot on a council estate that there might be a better future for them is not a job for the faint-hearted. It takes a special kind of personality to engage with excluded youngsters and a mixture of skills in sport and community/youth work to retain their interest. We visited a number of Positive Futures projects in the South East, such as KickStart at the Elephant and Castle and Leyton Orient's Community Sports Project to develop profiles of the kind of people required.
Since June 2003, we have been using the PerformerPlus software to help Positive Futures workers appraise their skills and identify any development they need. Critical areas of need identified so far include helping young people address their substance use and project planning to make the most of existing resources and raise funds for local Positive Futures activities in the future. Training packages are being delivered in association with Human Performance Ltd, NACRO and Crime Concern to bring existing workers up to speed and quickly induct new workers into Positive Futures and other community sports projects.
Positive Futures Workforce Quality Initiative: Case Study
Positive Futures Workforce Quality Initiative
