Today, Football Beyond Borders are calling on the world of football to support a national campaign in response to the Covid-19 outbreak. In collaboration with Ten Toes Media, we have teamed up with a host of household names in the football industry including Ian Wright, Chris Smalling, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Phil Foden and Leighanne Robe. The purpose of this video is greater than football. We want to ensure that the welfare of young people can be supported during this period. 

Over the past two weeks the constant messaging coming back from both parents and young people in our community is that young people need something to occupy them. There is clear demand for purposeful but fun tasks for young people to be doing while they are at home. Yet many of our young people have expressed barriers that are preventing them from maintaining educational activity during this time. We know that during periods away from school there is a literacy and attainment lag with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

As one of our participants Abi, who is 15 said: “my routine has gone. The structure I’d have for 7 hours of the day, it’s not there anymore and it’s weird. I feel like if I don’t push myself personally, I’m going to get into a habits where I put my school work second”. 

Therefore we are launching a national campaign to ensure that young people can sustain educational activity within the home environment and maintain internet access and electronic communications during this period. 

Alongside this crowdfunding campaign, we have stepped up our efforts to maintain contact with all of the young people involved in their programmes, across the UK. We are running weekly digital learning sessions through Google Classrooms to continue group based projects. We have also facilitated our weekly one to one therapy sessions with our at-risk cohort of students (30% of participants) online, as well as ensuring our practitioners call parents once a week.

In addition to this, we have revamped and adapted our digital presence, to ensure our young people can connect on the platforms they frequent. We are running a daily Instagram Live called ‘Practitioner’s Corner’ in which our audience are brought closer to our practitioner’s through an interactive Q & A. Alongside this, we have created a new Instagram account ‘FBBFamily_’, which young people can use to directly message, if they have any questions or would like to get in touch with their practitioners. 

HOW YOU CAN HELP

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