Youth Sport Trust

Youth Sport Trust

The Youth Sport Trust believes in using the power of sport to improve the lives of young people in the UK.

The core work covers:

. Raising the standards of PE & school sport
. Improving educational standards through sport
. Getting more people involved in sport
. Creating opportunities for young leaders and volunteers
. Supporting sporting talent in young people

United Utilities used the Changing Lives Challenge to support a Youth Sport Trust programme called Step into Sport.  Step into Sport enables young people to begin and sustain an involvement in leadership and volunteering through sport.

There are 4 elements to the Step into Sport Programme:

On: Sport Education curriculum model; students learn how to plan and run their own sports season as part of the PE programme.

In:  Focuses on how schools can utilise key stage 4 (14-16) young leaders in school based volunteering

Out: Moving young people from school based volunteering to community based volunteering through the provision of placements in high quality community clubs; supported by school mentor and country sport partnership (CS) to source a volunteer placement.

Leadership Academies:  Provide localised support for young leaders within SSPs (School Sports Partnerships).  An academy may take many forms but the outputs remain the same:

. Provide mentoring support to young leaders on a group or individual basis
. Encourage them on to appropriate qualifications and awards
. Provide the opportunity for young leaders to learn from their peers
. Support young leaders to source appropriate placements and volunteering experiences

In addition to the above, funding from the UU Changing Lives Challenge (£166,000) match funded by the voluntary organisation V will support the Young Officials Project until December 2009. 

The remainder of the funding from CLC will support the project (together with other match funding options from 2010 onwards.