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.