Core Networks & Projects
Did you know there are over 200 sports clubs & physical activity
providers in Hartlepool?
We support many clubs to achieve their goals, helping with a whole range of support. Any support is co-designed with clubs and providers, and could include helping with Delivery, Governance, Sustainability and/or Growth. This is bespoke support as every group has their own strengths, weaknesses and wider ambitions.
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We also facilitate or support a range of networks, and deliver several projects across Hartlepool and beyond.
Club Network
Hartlepool is unique with over 100 clubs and sporting organisations in a town of 100,000 people. Getting these clubs in a single room can provide valuable insight when it comes to governance and solving local problems . If you run a local sports or community club.
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EYFS Network
The aim of the network is to explore creative ways we can work together to give the children of the town the best start possible regardless of their background, culture, education, financial circumstances, locality etc.
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We also facilitate a £49,000 annual funding pot for EYFS providers to apply for.
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EYFS Grants
APPLY
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Sports Council
For over 40 years the Hartlepool sports council has been identifying talented athletes and supporting them with small grants and hosting an annual awards ceremony.
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The Council is made up of elected representatives from clubs, 4 local Councillors, a local authority officer and a representative from TASS..
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The sports council manage a delegated quarterly athlete grant scheme and select the recipients of the Gus Robinson Hartlepool Sport Annual Awards winners. Hartlepool College of Further Education host the annual awards celebration as a key partner of the sports council.
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Annual Awards
APPLY​
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Athlete Grants
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Join the Movement
JTM is Hartlepool's strategic action group that brings all aspects of Health, Lifestyle, and Movement together, to remove systemic inequalities for Hartlepool people.
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Active Schools
This network supports the work of the Hartlepool School Games Organiser, and clubs and providers who work alongside schools to promote Physical Education, School Sport and Physical Activity (PESSPA).
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It also supports and brings together our EYFS programs and funding, including Healthy Movers, our Move Mania project, all of our Youth Voice workstreams, and even our Sports Council priorities (Awards & Athlete grants).
Urban Sport & Urban Play Network
We help communities to activate their local places, from parks and playgrounds, to the beach.
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From Pumpkins in the Park, to the Grinch taking over local parks at Christmas, to our comprehensive school holiday programs, there's something for all the family to get involved in.
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Reports:
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Urban Sport & Urban Play Easter 2025
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Urban Sport & Urban Play Summer 2025 - coming soon
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Check out one of our videos here
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Strategic Networks & Partnerships
There is a lot of momentum building across Hartlepool, with many existing and emerging strategic networks working closer together, to ensure that investment goes further for local people.
Hartlepool Sport is involved in much of this strategic work and ensures that sports clubs and providers are part of the conversation and can shape this work.
Hartlepool Board
Overseeing the Plan for Neighbourhoods investment of £20m, engaging with the community to learn of their priorities for their local places. ​
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Hartlepool Sport is a board member.
Hartlepool Opportunities Partnership
Hartlepool's voluntary sector strategic partnership, HOP is working closely with statutory partners on a range of shared priorities, including Hartlepool Board's Plan for Neighbourhoods.
Join the Movement
Hartlepool's strategic action group making improvements across Health, Lifestyle, and Movement to remove systemic inequalities and help
get more people moving, more often.
The network meets every two or so months. The gap in Hartlepool’s partnership infrastructure focused on improving physical activity motivated the formation of Join The Movement.
The network is relatively young, having held a handful of meetings so far, and agreed upon three main priorities:
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Reducing obesity amongst children and adults
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Improving long term health conditions
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Improving Mental Health & Wellbeing
Do you work in one of these Areas ?
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Culture and Creative Partnership
Similar to JTM, but for the culture and creative industry and providers.
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Hartlepool Sport is a board member, working with partners to look at ways of bringing movement and play and creatives together.
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Hartlepool Sport is also a consortium member of a circa £1m Arts Council England Creative People and Places bid for the borough, that if successful, starts April 2026
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Sport England Place Expansion
This is a welcome investment from Sport England. We are in the "insight" phase, where we learn from our community how we can help them to lead active lives.
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Hartlepool Sport are leading on Children and Families on behalf of the wider network.
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Insights will inform a full application in July 2025 for the (initial) five year project.
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United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
We are working towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals and are mindful of how our decisions locally, can have global consequences.
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We encourage all of our partners to learn more about SDGs.
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Youth Networks & Partnerships
There are several different Youth Networks across Hartlepool and beyond that we support and/or feed into.
Hartlepool Sport Youth Network
This is an emerging network, bringing some of the youth representatives from clubs and providers, our YPSP project, and some of the amazing young volunteers from our Urban Sport & Urban Play program together to learn from them, and also support other groups to embed youth voice into their organisations.
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Some light touch work has supported clubs and providers to establish Young People’s voices forums. The ambition is to facilitate a wider cross provider forum of Young People’s representatives to identify challenges and feed into wider work and allow this young people’s forum to be able to commission projects themselves.
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Local Youth Transformation Pilot
Hartlepool Borough Council are one of 12 local authorities nationally to receive support from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport
(DCMS) to help to re-build a high-quality offer for young people, testing ways to best
rebuild local authority and community capability that ensures a local youth offer which addresses the needs
of young people and supports Government priorities.
Hartlepool Youth Work Network
​This network brings together youth centres such as the Belle Vue Community Sports Centre, West View Project and Kilmarnock Road Community Centre, Hartlepool Sport, Hartlepool Borough Council’s Youth Service among others.
The future of this group will be determined as the
Hartlepool Local Youth Partnership continues to be established.
This group is having the next
meeting on Monday 15 September 2025 at West View Project at 1.00p.m.
All youth workers are
welcome to attend.
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Hartlepool Youth Partnership
Local Youth Partnerships (LYP) address the needs of children and young adults locally,
through partnerships and collaboration. Robust, inclusive and varied partnerships
encourage higher investment and support for youth, resulting in better outcomes for
children, young people and communities.
This is an emerging piece of work. More information can be found here.
Youth Advisory Board
This emerging advisory board is made up of several youth representatives including Hartlepool's Youth Member of Parliament.
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This group feeds into the Hartlepool Board, advising on youth priorities on the Plan for Neighbourhoods investment.
NEYA Regional Youth Partnership Meetings
Over the next two years, the intention is to hold a number of meetings for LYP leads with
those supported by NEYA directly or indirectly. These events will bring together lead
professionals to explore how Local Youth Partnerships (LYPs) can be strengthened and
developed across the region. The sessions may include but are not limited to the following
focuses; sharing best practice, identifying strengths within existing LYPs, and co designing
practical approaches for regional growth and collaboration.
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Health and Lifestyle
Networks & Partnerships
Join the Movement encompasses a large body of work from Hartlepool Sport and a whole range of partners from across the voluntary sector and statutory services.
Young Person's Social Prescribing
Our young person's social prescribing project is designed to empower 11-18 year olds by connecting them with tailored support and resources.
Through a collaborative approach, we help young people explore their interests, access community services, and build meaningful connections.
This initiative aims to enhance wellbeing and promote positive mental health, ensuring they have the tools they need to thrive. Join us in fostering a supportive for our youth to grow and succeed.
Financial Inclusion Partnership
The Financial Inclusion partnership is led by West View Advice and Resource centre, in partnership with various VCSE and statutory partners.
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Hartlepool Sport is an executive committee member.
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Adult Community Mental Health Transformation
The Hartlepool Community Mental Health Transformation Fund has been established to support innovative, community-led projects that improve mental health support for adults across Hartlepool.
The fund is part of a broader programme of transformation aligned with the Community Mental Health Framework and local priorities co-produced during the 2025 Visioning Workshop.
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This funding opportunity invites VCSE organisations, partnerships, and community groups to propose services or projects that meet local need, close gaps in provision, and contribute to a more inclusive, person-centred and trauma-informed system.
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Hartlepool Sport is part of the steering groups for this partnership.
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Visit https://www.thepfctrust.org/communitytransformationfunding for more information.
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Diversity Networks
We are involved in several diversity and cohesion networks including the North East Anti Racism Coalition and the Hartlepool Board’s Diversity & Cohesion network.
We have recently worked closely with the Diversity Network for our Summer Urban Sport & Urban Play program, and with Hartlepool Borough Council on their fun day at Mill House Leisure centre.
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Her Game Too
Her Game Too is a successful national campaign from Sport England that has recently celebrated it’s tenth year.
Founded in May 2021, Her Game Too is an unpaid, voluntary campaign led by a team of dedicated female sports fans who are passionate about creating a positive change in football and the wider sporting world. Hartlepool Sport are supporting regional efforts through small amounts of funding and helping to bring other clubs on board with the HGT initiative.
Walk into Wellness Network & Walking Festivals
Walk into Wellness is an informal network of walk providers across Hartlepool, from the VCSE and statutory services. This network was created and convened by Tees Valley Sport, in partnership with Hartlepool Sport and Hartlepower.
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Hartlepool Sport have also provided staff time and some funding to deliver several walking festivals which have been popular ways of engaging with local people, bring service providers to local people. Short, Medium and Long walks were offered, along with ‘walking sports’ offers from Huskies Basketball and Hartlepool Wadokai (Karate).
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Hartlepool Sport have since commissioned Walks with a New Perspective, a locally trusted walk provider, to facilitate this WIW network and to deliver several walking festivals each year.
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Hartlepool Police Independent Advisory Group
IAGs help the Police to tackle issues that may cause concern to local people, communities and businesses.
They do this by offering guidance, insight, and where needed, acting as critical friends to the Police.
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Hartlepool Sport is a member of Hartlepool's IAG.
Literacy Taskforce
We are working with many local partners as part of the Hartlepool literacy taskforce, and its various workstreams.​
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Hartlepool literacy rates aren't where we would like them - even the language we use on this website isn't accessible to all, something that we are working on. The taskforce goes beyond reading, to include health and financial literacy amongst others...
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Food Partnership
The Hartlepool Food Partnership brings together representatives from the community, food businesses, the voluntary sector, educational institutions and the local authority – who care about the quality, affordability and sustainability of food in their town. By working in partnership with the wider community, a long-term plan is created to make available healthy, affordable and sustainable food.​
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Hartlepool Sport is a member of the steering group.
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Visit https://hartlepoolfoodpartnership.co.uk/ for more information.
Joseph Rowntree Foundation Sea Change Partnership
This is an emerging partnership led by JRF.
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Hartlepool Sport, BloominArt, CLIP, West View Advice & Resource centre are working with some national, and local partners.
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Each organisation has a team of 3 community researchers to work alongside communities to learn more about their aspirations and how we can overcome barriers together.
More information to follow...
Poverty Truth Commission
The work of the Poverty Truth Commission aligns clearly with the Urban Sport and Urban Play areas (amongst other areas of Hartlepool Sport strategy).
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Hartlepool Sport recently funded the commission's "say it with flowers" launch event at the Brus tunnel.
Inclusion, Para Sport & Movement
We have been a long time partner and supporter of CLIP, Sportability and Hartlepool Carers and have funded many inclusion initiatives and pilots.
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Within PFC Trust, Hartlepool Sport worked closely with Daisy Chain and supported many initiatives and gained significant insight into the barriers to activity for the neurodivergent community.
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We recently started working with Catcote school, to bridge the gap between their art & creative team, and physical activity by stealth to promote health and wellbeing.
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Hartlepool Sport has built on the inclusion pilots, with some more intense development work with Huskies SENDsational program, and the addition of para sections in regional Karate championships (North East Open Karate Championships).
Resilience Forum
We are working alongside the The Big League CIC/the Salaam Centre, local government and a range of partners to learn about the role sport clubs can play in community resilience.
Projects
Some projects are small scale pilots, and some are fledging or established partnership projects.
Young Person's Social Prescribing
Our young person's social prescribing project is designed to empower 11-18 year olds by connecting them with tailored support and resources.
Through a collaborative approach, we help young people explore their interests, access community services, and build meaningful connections.
This initiative aims to enhance wellbeing and promote positive mental health, ensuring they have the tools they need to thrive. Join us in fostering a supportive for our youth to grow and succeed.
Stealth Steps
Stealth Steps were identified by the Hartlepool Sport team after several park based activity days.
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The 7 most popular parks and open spaces gave been mapped using Google Earth and then walking them with a FitBit to count the steps. These maps have been created as a digital and printed resource to help activate open spaces.
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Contact us for the full stealth steps resource for Hartlepool parks.
Star Girls
STAR Girls Group — Find Your People, Find Your Spark!
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Do you know a young woman aged 10–19 who’d thrive in a positive, supportive space?
The STAR Girls Group is just that — a weekly meet-up where young women can connect, build friendships, and grow in confidence. Every week brings a new theme, but fun & friends are always there.
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Led by the town’s only Young Person Social Prescriber (YPSP), this group offers a safe, welcoming environment for everyone.
LilyAnne's Wellbeing
(Titan House, York Road)
Mondays, 4:30pm–5:30pm
Whether she’s shy, social, or somewhere in between, there’s a place for her here.
Healthy Movers
Hartlepool Sport, alongside Hartlepool Borough Council have funded the Youth Sport Trust to deliver their ‘Healthy Movers’ project across Hartlepool early years settings.
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Press release: https://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/people/healthy-movers-initiative-launched-in-hartlepool-in-a-bid-to-get-children-moving-4453028​​
Girls in the Park
A report from our summer 2025 program will be available soon.
Move Mania
The Hartlepool Sport Move Mania Challenge began as a five day challenge that encourages families to walk, cycle, scoot or even rollerblade to or from school while completing fun, activities and games that are designed to get families talking and feet moving.
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It has since evolved into a whiteboard app that schools can use to "gamify" the school run and support a whole school and whole family approach to movement.
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The insights can then inform local policy.
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Kit Out Hartlepool
A partnership between StreetGames, Sported, Hartlepool Sport, Youth Sport Trust, ReLoved and local schools colleges and Hartlepool Borough Council.
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We have received thousands of donations of pre-loved and new sports kit which has been donated back into communities over the summer, ensuring that kit isn't a barrier to becoming and staying active.
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Keep a look out for the report.
Big Town Tidy Up
We're big fans of everything the BTTU group do. This is a community led group that helps to keep Hartlepool tidy through formal and informal litter picking.
BTTU is also one of the biggest walking groups in Hartlepool!
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We have supported the group several times with small grants, but more importantly, we help them to keep the borough tidy - especially as part of our Urban Sport and Urban Play events.
Pool Together
Pool Together is a beautifully simple but powerful idea: encouraging everyone in Hartlepool to connect, foster kindness, and pool our resources to support one another. Bringing a sense of cohesiveness rather than division and highlighting what we have in common vs what we are our differences.
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Volunteering
We have so many ways of supporting volunteers, in clubs and community settings.
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If you would like to volunteer with Hartlepool Sport or our partners, then drop us a message or come along to one of our events/meetings and have a chat.
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Keep your eyes peeled for our volunteer recognition scheme.
Activities on Prescription
In April 2023, a cross sector working group consisting of the PCN Clinical Director and Senior Social Prescriber, COO of The PFC Trust, a Tees Valley Sport Active Partnership Officer, LilyAnne’s Wellbeing Directors and local authority representatives was established. The aim was to explore new ways of working to integrate primary care into community provision to enable patients to become more active and improve their long-term health conditions in a project called ‘activities on prescription’.
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Fundraising
We get involved in fundraising activities from time to time, from prestigious events like the Great North Run to much smaller local events too.
Past Projects
We've highlighted some of the projects from our inception in 2020 to give a flavour of some the work we have done over the past few years.
PESSPA & School Games
In 2023, Hartlepool Sport added capacity to the part time Hartlepool School Games organiser role through funding an extra day a week (£4000) to ensure competitive sport events could continue with the changes to the SGO role nationally, offer additional SEND sessions and promote school and club links. There was also an addition discretionary delegated budget (£5000) managed by the SGO to further
support this.
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“I feel that last year was the most successful year I have had in terms of what I could offer the schools and how I have been able to link in with what is going on in the community. Thank you for the support with funding as without this the young people would not have been able to access as much as they did, and I would not have had the extra time in my week to plan and deliver what I was able to do”
Kate Robinson, Hartlepool School Games Organiser
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High Tunstall Garage
We worked alongside Starfish Health & Wellbeing, Let's Connect, local engineers and mechanics - hosted by High Tunstall College.
This project ran for c18 months and helped give dozens of young people practical mechanical skills and industry knowledge, alongside wellbeing support to build their confidence before going onto further education or employment.
Ripple Effect Mapping
‘Not all who wander are lost’ is a thoughtful expression that describes how Hartlepool Sport has operated in the start-up years. Being guided by principles rather than a rigid strategy, has meant that leads could be followed as and when they present themselves.
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The Ripple Effect Mapping showcases the early period well and can be viewed in full here.
Connected Communities
Sported led on a Hartlepool Connected Communities work stream alongside Hartlepool Sport, Hartlepower and several local clubs, schools and other providers. The theme of the project is around Inclusion.
100's of responses were received from children and young people with some stand out findings below:
Specific activities requested:
Swimming; Throwing; Football; Rugby; Trampolining; Dodgeball; Gymnastics; Cricket; Basketball; Table tennis; Dance; Running; Boxing;
Key challenges for Young People:
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Finding groups that are inclusive or hold separate SEN sessions
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Concern for safety
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Lack of SEN training (coaches / volunteers)
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Sensory difficulties
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Noise / too many people
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Judgement of others
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Lack of confidence
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Lack of motivation
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If you are interested in getting support for your club/group to make it more accessible for young people with additional needs, please contact k.foley@sported.org.uk for more information.
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This project is not currently active.
FREE Boxing
& Martial Arts
We working with a range of partners, and funded some taster sessions throughout August at Summerhill Visitors Centre. Age 11-18
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The young people we worked with wanted these sessions to continue past the Summer, so we were able to extend these to Easter - and keep them free too. A local Karate club, Hartlepool Wadokai also provided free meals and additional support.
See the case study report here
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This project is no longer active.
Fundraising
Hartlepool Sport took the lead on the successful 2021 U Change Lives 25 #UC25 fundraising drive for Hartlepool Carers.
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It was a challenge to launch this campaign during one of the Covid-19 lockdown periods, but the community really stepped up - helping us raise over £50,000 to purchase 2 respite caravans for young carers to use.
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More recently, we have helped our parent charity, The PFC Trust to raise over £110,000 at it's first Annual Gala - an incredible amount that was surpassed at our second Gala.
Defibs
"You don't have to be a fireman to use a fire extinguisher, you don't have to be a paramedic to use a defibrillator."
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In 2021 there were some unfortunate incidents of cardiac arrest both locally with the sad passing of Danny Shurmer who was a much-loved local cricketer (Hartlepool United FC honoured Danny in the 43rd minute of the National League play-off final) and internationally with the incident involving Denmark’s Christian Eriksen in the Euro 2020 game against Finland.
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Hartlepool Sport mapped the existing provision of Defibrillators in sports venues and within statutory services with the intention of fundraising to plug gaps in coverage, signpost to exiting defibrillators and raise awareness and training overall.
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At the same time, the family of the late Danny Shurmer were busy creating a lasting tribute to him by doing a similar body of work. The DS43 group have been doing such an incredible job at covering the town with defibs that we have been able to take step back from this area
Social Enterprise Support & LARCH
Many local clubs are Social Enterprises, and those that don't necessarily see themselves as such can benefit from some business support and mentoring.
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When clubs have several sources of income, including trading, they are less dependent upon grant funding and fundraising which makes them more future proof and sustainable.
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We worked alongside LARCH, as part of the Hartlepool Area Based Panel to create accessible support and content to help clubs develop their social enterprise and business acumen.
The LARCH has is currently going through a review period, but support is still available.
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Bike Library
& Maintenance
We worked with Cleveland Police, the OPCC, Durham Police and Hartlepool Wadokai Karate Club and RunFit Health & Fitness/Rusty Spokes to collect/re-purpose pre-loved bikes.
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Dozens of bikes were donated to local groups including to the Horizon School. These were then refurbished and used by the young people to build up practical skills.
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Some of the Young People we worked with have learnt how to recondition bikes as part of our High Tunstall Garage Project.
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Some of this work continues with our partner clubs/groups such as Sustrans Walking & Cycling Hub.
Sports Wellbeing
The Tees, Esk and Wear Valley NHS Trust, Hartlepool Borough Council and Hartlepool Sport funded a pilot sport wellbeing project. This allows clubs and providers to access a whole host of free training courses, workshops and resources to ensure they are 'Trauma Informed' and are best placed to support their coaches, staff and volunteers, parents and players as we come out of the pandemic.
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A local blogger recently attended one of our specially designed Well-being First Responder workshops and wrote all about it. The workshop was delivered by Let's Connect CEO Iain Caldwell and safeguarding expert Ronnie Bage.
"30 years ago there was no such thing as mental health... or depression"
Take a look at the blog post here
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Ronnie Bage has also dropped by some Easter Holiday Activity sessions this week, seen above at Hartlepool Wadokai's Easter camp (and is attending some more too).
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"Ronnie was absolutely brilliant with the kids! - he made a well-being talk so fun, interactive and engaging for all ages"
- Lynne, Chief Instructor
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A whole host of well-being resources and training is available completely free of charge to clubs and providers, and all can be tailored to fit groups. Sessions can be delivered exclusively to clubs, or alongside other clubs too. Contact us to discuss your requirements or to learn more about the project.
Start ups & relaunch
As part of our Club Development, we are able to support new groups to set-up and established groups to re-launch, something that we have done a lot this past year due to the global pandemic.
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Three successful examples of Startups that we have supported are:
Huskies Basketball Club - which now delivers in six towns!
North East Cycling Academy - which now runs sessions at Summerhill cycle track in Hartlepool, and runs the Middlesbrough Velodrome.
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KinoHart/KinoSport, a local videographer who now works regionally with many clubs and statutory partners to help them tell their stories.
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We work with many different individuals and organisations of all forms, in a wide variety of ways.
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Get in touch if you have an idea, or would like some support.
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Keith Hutchinson,
The Extra Yard
We supported Keith as an athlete (via a PFC Trust athlete bursary) and then provided funding and support to qualify as an athletics coach.
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The Extra Yard is now supporting dozens of people each week to get active, and local athletes to progress to the next level. See a recent Press release for more information.
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Keith is also a PFC Sponsored athlete as he continues to represent Hartlepool and Britain at World Masters Athletics.
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COPD Coffee & Chats
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a group of lung diseases that cause airflow blockage and breathing-related problems.
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You can find out more about COPD here.
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Hartlepool Sport worked closely with Hartlepool Health PCN to target support from the voluntary sector for a cohort of 600 people with COPD. A range of resources were also created, and it culminated in a series of coffee and chat sessions with residents and coaches and professionals to people could have more confidence to work with people with COPD.
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Read & React
Our Ward Jackson Park read and react challenge was a big hit with families.
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'Your Adventure, Your Choice' is the theme of this trail, putting the power in your hands as you decide what to do and how your adventure ends. With the Sol and the Nox characters to interact with across the park.
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Bringing accessible reading, open spaces and movement together.
HOPE Performance
We worked alongside Shaun Hope of HOPE Performance.
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This series of workshops brought club coaches, parents and athletes together to think a little differently about how they see performance.
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We're really looking forward to arranging another one of these series soon.
Long Term Health Coffee & Chats
Following on from the successful COPD coffee and chat sessions, it was only natural to expand this successful pilot to include other long term health conditions.
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We worked alongside Hartlepool Borough Council Community Hubs who hosted the sessions.
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Health & Hygiene
This is a good example of some of the responsive work we are involved with.
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We recently provided a small amount of funding for our friends at West View Project, and support from our Safeguarding and Wellbeing Lead Ronnie, to deliver some workshops with Young People to focus on mental health and how feeling clean can make you feel better all round. The funding will cover the session delivery and some hygiene packs for the young people to take away.