Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Centre of Social Justice in Sport and Society
Right to be Active (R2BA): Examining the sport and physical activity experiences of care-experienced young people in England
The project sought to examine the strategies in place to support care-experienced young people’s engagements with sport and physical activity and individuals’ lived experiences of these.
the challenge
The number of young people being removed from their families and placed in the care of the state is increasing both nationally and internationally. Moreover, care-experienced young people have been identified as one of the most disadvantaged groups in society; at-risk of a range of adverse social, educational and health outcomes.
Participation in sport and physical activity is increasingly seen as a means of narrowing the ‘outcomes gap’ by contributing to care-experienced young people’s positive physical, social and psychological development. However, there remain concerns about the piecemeal nature of sport and physical activity opportunities for care-experienced young people and their capacity to access them. Relatively few studies have considered the role of sport and physical activity within the day-to-day lives of care-experienced young people and they remain something of a ‘hidden group’ in relation to sport and physical activity research, policy and practice. Hence, further work was needed to exemplify care-experienced young people’s own lived experiences of sport and physical activity.
The approach
Recognising the dominance of adult voices in the existing literature and the tendency for care-experienced young people and adults to hold different views when discussing the same issues, the R2BA project emphasised the value of making space for ‘youth voice’ and was subsequently comprise of four interconnected phases:
- Phase 1: a rapid review of relevant health and education policy documents to identify how access to sport and physical activity was situated within them.
- Phase 2: the creation and distribution of national, online surveys of (1) adults working with/for care-experienced young people and (2) young people themselves.
- Phase 3: semi-structured interviews with adults from two different local authority contexts followed by focus group discussions with 63 care-experienced young people in 6 geographical contexts across England.
- Phase 4: the generation of a series of ‘concept cartoons’ (Hooper, 2018) and repeat focus groups with the young people from 4 geographic contexts to share images and check/refine our interpretations of the stories they (and their peers) had told.
the impact
The key findings from this research has been presented to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Looked-After Children and Care-Leavers at the House of Commons.
In addition, two dissemination events (at Leicester City Football Club: https://www.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/news/0918-care-experienced-children-and-sport/ and Leeds Beckett University) have taken place whereby policy-makers, charities, sporting organisations and NGBs explored how the findings could be used in practice.
The R2BA project has offered a valuable new perspective on this area of study, identifying the need for a more holistic understanding of care-experienced young people’s lives and the requirement for further consideration as to how different stakeholder groups (including young people themselves) can work in partnership to better facilitate care-experienced young people’s access to, and engagements with, sport and physical activity.
- Young People Report: http://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/6496/
- Adult Report: http://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/6487/
