Bentley is a city which is located in Lancashire which is in the North West of England. The population of the city is over 100,000 and is constantly on the increase. However with an increase in population also comes an increase of crime. The majority of the crime has been identified as antisocial behaviour as well as criminal damage from males in high school and college age.
From looking at the crime rates in Bentley it is clear to see that the crime has been on the increase since the start of the new century. As well as crime increasing, there seems to be a pattern emerging; the pattern being that crime rates are at its peak every week between the times of 12-2
The projects name is ‘Play hard, play smart, play together’. The project focuses on young males between the ages of 14-25. From discussion and questionnaires given to the young adults I can see that the reasoning for the high crime rate was due to their being nothing to do after education on a Friday night, from this a gap was spotted to create the project which will run from 11-3 on a Friday night.
The aim of the project is :
‘To use basketball as motivation in reducing levels of crime and antisocial behaviour in the city of Bentley’
In order for the aim to be achieved there are some objectives set in order to break down the aim and make it clearer to monitor. These objectives are:
• Provide each child with the opportunity to participate in weekly games
• Deliver multi-sport sessions on a weekly basis
• Provide the opportunity to gain/develop qualifications through volunteering
• Provide each child the chance of regular competitive matches
These objectives have been created through research in Bentley, asking both teachers and students. The reason for this is because Beech and Chadwick (2007) suggests that research gives you detailed information on sport markets that is required to make a decision. The reason why both students and teachers were asked is because students are the one who the target market are, with the teachers they can honestly tell you what is available for the children and will be able to tell you if there is enough being done for the children as they have regular day to day interaction from the children
How the sport was decided for the project was that a questionnaire was done and asked of what would you like to be done in and around Bentley which would be accessible for anyone your age and what sport would you like to try out the most,
Surprisingly basketball had brought in the most votes as people were asked to explain their answer and the reason for it was that it was a sport that is looking interesting on tv to watch and it is a sport most people have not tried despite being available however for a high fee to sign on with the chance of not playing
When the teachers/parents were asked about what would they prefer, an indoor or outdoor sport, they all said indoor sport such as basketball or badminton as it can be played anytime and will not be called off for the weather, another reason for an indoor sport is that they know their children are safe inside and not out in the cold on a dark winter night. The reason for asking parents and teachers is because Oppenheim,(2000) believes that you will get a higher response rate which can be used further for analysis . Another reasoning by one of the objective is to develop player skills whether this be through officiating or coaching, this is done as the idea is that the leagues and clubs will be run from athlete volunteers trying to gain qualifications, and if they volunteer for the club then they will have a subsidised or fully paid qualification course(dependant on the qualification)
How the session and leagues will work are that for the first two hours the athletes will be taking part in basketball training which will be initially be taught by two coaches who will also be the referees of the match, both coaches and referees will have recognised level 1’s and 2’s in basketball, as the projects run they will then be supported by the participants who volunteer and get put forward for their qualifications. After the two hour training session, each team will play at least three times with a timed rest in between games and a league format will be built for the different ages, at the end of the project each team will get a certificate and medal for participation and the winning team will get one trophy and a separate medal.
Their will also be individual awards but they will not be for most points etc, they will be for : Most improved, Fair play award, Volunteer award, Players player award and community award
Each coach/ referee will have :
• Basketball level 1 and 2
• Safeguarding
• Level 2 multi skills
• Emergency first aid
How sport can make an impact
In the past sport has been proven to make impacts in multiple communities in different ways. In 1944 the only two subjects taught at every school was PE and RE, the reason for this was that the health benefits that sport has on people is inarguable, during that time it was the war and everybody wanted fit and healthy soldiers to participate and for their children to grow up in their footsteps.
Unicef,(2018)
One way sport is being used is in Africa, An example of sport being used is after the 2010 and 2011 Haiti earthquake and cholera epidemic, UNICEF (non-governmental organisation) have provided more than 3 million children with vaccinations who have never been immunized, they aimed to vaccinate 500,000 Haitians against cholera in 2014 (UNICEF USA, 2013) UNICEF put on football matches every year and football players play with a no wage for the match and any donations or profits from the match all go to UNICEF who run throughout the year and set up different projects to help different communities. According to Barder(2012) development is built on the foundations of aid, it uses social power, economic and political systems to provide on a long term basis, sustainable wellbeing for citizens. An example of development is by UNICEF again as they have provided school kits for 750,000 children just in 2012 and the amount of children who go to school is higher than ever(UNICEF USA, 2013) as well as this they developed a three year strategy to support the government’s cholera elimination effort
Putnam (2000 cited in Collins, 2004, pp.729) defined the social capital as, ‘shared values, social control and order, reduced financial inequalities, trust in and support from one’s friends,
neighbours and close kin, confidence in institutions and leaders in society, and
participation in political, social and cultural network’. This means that for the community to evolve and develop, then it relies on the development of the individuals and this can improve health, social aspects as well as being a distraction towards any anti-social behaviour
Social capital policy is improving social capital is the key to empowering and reviving communities, (SEV,2000) this can be done through sport and through the concept of being an “active citizen” Local Government Assoc. (1999). This is explained to be that when someone is volunteering through sport and getting involved with a project like this, then they are not only developing their own skills, they are also being a big factor of developing the community as they have a massive impact and influence of other peoples lives and trying to improve on them. They are also engaging in others beliefs and interests as well as sharing their own and appreciating any common goals which they have, as well as having a wider social role for sport, Coalter F(2007)
(Lebronjamesfamilyfoundation.org, 2018)
One of the biggest names in basketball history (Lebron James) has set up his own charity(Lebronjamesfamilyfoundation.org, 2018) and this is an example of how sport is a big influence in the community, as the charity set up is given a percentage of James’ wage each week in order to go in the community and provide sporting opportunities and scholarships for athletes, so far James and his charity have been running for over 5 years and some of his notable mentions are that since his foundation has started he has become a major contributer to the ‘Children’s defence fund’ (Children’s Defense Fund, 2018) as well as ‘Onexone’ (ONE x ONE, 2018) both these charities aims are to support the children and give people from poor backgrounds a good education as well as helping them with hunger, food, health and play
Funding
Item or activity
Total cost
Hire of sports hall
£1920 (£40 an hour x 4 hours x 12 weeks)
Insurances, training and qualifications
(safeguarding, first aid, Basketball coaching level 1 and 2, Basketball officiating level 1 and 2)
£3000
Equipment: Basketballs, kits, whistles, cones, bibs
£800
Basketball coaches/referees
£1440 (£15 an hour x 4 hours x 12 weeks x 2 coaches)
Marketing
£1000
Emergency expenses
£500
Totals
8660
Participants will contribute £2 a session, however if they volunteer for one week by assisting with the league using the qualifications gained such as refereeing a match or taking over a coaching session. If the project is successful we will then give the players the option in having a salary of a coach or refereeing and will pay them £10 an hour which will give them a free week of participation which will in sense lower the cost of funding needed to expand further.
We have got funding from Sports England (Sportengland.org, 2018) for a total of £5360 which is under the small grants issued by them and will cover the hire of the sports hall, the insurance costs, basketball coaches and the marketing costs.
We also have funding from The national lottery fund (Biglotteryfund.org.uk, 2018) for a total of 3300, which will cover the cost of the training and qualifications for the volunteers to attend but will only be given once the volunteers have been enrolled on the course, they will also cover the costs of the equipment as well as emergency expenses
With this funding this will be able to ensure the smooth running of the club to fulfil the requirements of the leagues to run for 12 weeks and we have permission from both funders to reapply if the leagues become successful, with the option to apply for an increase if we want to expand on a bigger scale and set up clubs in the surrounding areas
Volunteers
During the project we will have volunteers provided by Basketball England (Basketballengland.co.uk, 2018) as well as having volunteers from the athletes themselves who will have the opportunity the following week to participate at no charge and the option of them progressing their skills and gaining a recognised qualification.
The reason for using volunteers is Ncvo.org.uk, (2018) puts forwards the point that the volunteers are great for using as it gives them a sense of giving back to community and this is what this project is all about as the project is for the community and to lower crime rates influenced by the target group, as well as this Jamieson and Ross, (2007) also put forward similar views as Ncvo.org.uk(2018) as they both say volunteering can develop skillsets, these can be teamwork, individual and leadership skills and through volunteering they will gain an improvement on all of these.
Volunteering will benefit both the volunteers and clubs as it will lower the overall costs for the club for the sustainable future when the project wants to expand out, for the athlete this opportunity will enhance their CV, as well as this volunteering for the club will also work well with the local authority as it will lower their numbers needed for staffing as the more people that want to volunteer means that their will be a less number on the street needed for the police, Hylton (2013)
Marketing
For marketing there are a few ideas which we have that can fit our budget and are an effective way of attracting the participants
The first way is we have permission from the colleges and authority to put up posters and hand out flyers to all of the sports teams as well as giving them to all the pupils in form time, this way we are targeting everyone at any school age, by this way we have got the attention and will ensure that the message is sent out to let them know as well as the teachers and parents who have concerns about the crime rates that something is being done about this, the cost price for the flyers and posters are £200
Also we have had approval as well as a cost price(£100) to put an advert in the local newspaper which has been reduced due to this being a non-profit organisation and will help towards the community as well as being a potential shirt sponsor for either news source to show that they too are giving back to the community
Bentley hits radio (2018)have given us the green light to put a 12 second advert (£200)at 3pm and 4pm every week day as this is the time most children will be picked up from school and after school activities and some travelling home with parents listening to the radio, and this will grab the attention of both parents and students and inform them of what sport is doing for the community and how they can get involved
The last marketing technique we have is to put on an online advert on the national governing body page for basketball on the Bentley area and the cost price is £500, however this includes all of the camera rental fees, computer editing programme usage and the software needed to create this advert,
Monitoring
The way the club is going to monitored in its success is that each week we will calculate the number of participants there are and check if there is an increase or decrease amount of participants, as well as this we plan on getting weekly updates on the crime rates of which are of antisocial behaviour and vandalism involving people aged 14-25 from the local police and authority to see if the number is dropping as the weeks go on. We have only set up the project for 12 weeks as we want to be able to monitor regularly assess if the project is being successful, as well as having permission and an agreement to renew contracts if needed for the same price. The benefit of this is creating partnerships with funders, sponsors and anyone involved as we are asking for little amounts over the same time period creating regularity. Another benefit of doing it this way is that if the project does start to decline further on in the year if we do plan to evolve on a bigger scale is that we can start to take down the project in the area where it is not working and spending as little as possible instead of for example booking a sports hall for a year and the number decreasing and then losing some money from the deposit.
In the project the observation technique from this project comes from the questionnaire, market research and the interviewing of the teachers and parents to come up with what sport would like to be done.
Any information or analysis gained from the project can be used in the future to help with the set up of other projects in the future, as well as this we will help the athletes with any future plans they may come across, this can be getting involved in basketball on a bigger scale by joining a different league or getting involved with the national governing body to by becoming a referee or coach and will give them any advice and the full support needed to progress
In the future, the project may apply more theory to overcomes the limitations and issues in the project and sports. A model which can be used and taught is one that was created by Lerner et al(2011), this was the Five Cs model (Competence, Confidence, Connection, Character and compassion) which can be used to characterise the positive youth development of the project which In the end can help develop the 6th C(Contribution) (Ettekal et al., 2016; Lerner et al., 2011)
Benefits and potential issues
As with every project there are always going to be a few potential issues that may occur and this is how we are going to address them
Bullying is the most common type of issue that will form as all participants will have the win at all costs mentality, how we plan to overcome this is that we will set up a policy and code that all participants will have to agree to, we will also make it clear to everyone that any bullying will be reported to the local authority as it is against the law and they will be removed from the leagues and training session, this is also the same policy for racism. This list is adopted from the one made by Playbytherules.net.au (2014)
With any competition, rivalries or segregation may be formed, how we plan to eliminate these are by having a couple of training sessions to see all participants abilities, and then we plan on making the team’s so they are even,
Aggression and Fighting may become a problem as in a competitive situation where tensions are high, this may lead to more conflict. The way we will get rid of this is having smaller timed games, with time outs during the game called by the referees when they deem necessary.
With the different ages in the group, their will be an increase of physicality and some athletes will try and dominate the less physical athletes due to their age, the way we plan to overcome this is to make all the players on the same team the same age as well as the other teams and make different leagues to match the similar age and physicality
As well as negatives of the project there are major positives which come with the sports aspect
Potential benefits
The main aspect that sport has an improvement on is health, whether this be physical or mental, Sport England (2018) state that someone who participants in regular exercise is less likely to develop an illness (20 guaranteed) such as cancer, as well as illness, it keeps the body healthy and more mobile with age. Mental health is also looked after as sport can be seen as a stress reliever as it takes your mind off the subject, it helps with reducing anxiety and depression as the brain is a moderator of norepinephrine, which will be increasingly made and is a chemical stress produced from the brain
Improve social skills and Teamwork, this is with any team sports as the participants will be playing with people they may have never spoke to before, they need to come together to get onto the same agenda in order to be successful
‘Published studies show the positive effects of sport on education include improved attainment, lower absenteeism and drop-out, and increased progression to higher education. For instance, young people’s participation in sport improves their numeracy scores by 8 per cent on average above non-participants’ Sport England (2018)
Sport has some skills which can be transferred by anybody, Stankovich (2011) names a few of these being:
- Goal setting, in anything that is done in life, a goal or target is set and should be what you aim to do
- Motivation and resilience, sport can help with this as in sport there is an end goal in which you work to, this can be used in life when things start to get hard and you remember the success to come in the end
- Team building, this is something that is not just in sport, an example of this is in a job, you may work with people you may not like, however you are all their as you have the same interest and would like to succeed
Summary
The proposal explained the problems in and around Bentley, it explained that Bentley was suffering from a high rate of crime from the ages of 14-25 and was mainly at night between the hours of 12 and 2, of this crime the main areas of crime were vandalism and anti-social behaviour, this is due to the fact that their was nothing for the youth to do at that time as it was the time period where school had finished, some parents and elder siblings would be going out for the night and the children were left to their own accord and some had nothing to do until they got back to educational institutes the following week as they were not part of any sports or social clubs which take place on the weekend. Inside the proposal explained certain aspects of the sport and social policy as well as social capital, the proposal addressed any barriers or negatives which may occur from sport and how the plan is to overcome this as well as the positive aspects of sport. This proposal involves theory in and around sport and how the social development theory can be applied and used to reduce crime in Bentley. Inside the proposal explains how the participants can progress through basketball in their own goals and set up potential career paths. The project uses basketball with the social capital theory to provide the youth in Bentley the chance to give back to the community as a volunteer as well as developing their social network, basketball is used as it was the sport that the participants want and the guardians/teachers approve of this due to the fact that it was indoor and being ran at the same time as the crime rates were high so in sense if their was an increase in participants then in theory their would be less crime as their would be less people involved. Also the proposal explains the formal agreements with the partners and sponsors involved as well as the plans for the future and what can be done to expand. Where monitoring goes, it is also explained that their project is only set up for 12 weeks with the agreements from anyone involved for regular renewal of everything so that the project can be seen as a success and will lower the cost