
Investment theme: Developing leadership and innovation, Improving health and well-being
Glasgow Girl’s Football Club: £9,408 in 2019, Tampon Tax Community Fund:
Purpose: to contribute towards providing training and qualifications for 12 members to become volunteer football coaches.
Achievements:
Young women achieving level 3 coaching qualifications: After a delay due to Covid restrictions we started the programme on 12th May2021, running through to 27th October 2021. In the period this period the female trainees each completed levels 1, 2 and 3 of their coaching qualifications which involved SFA supervised football coaching and participation in coaching girls at the club and school girls. Project participants also attended 38 weekly health focused learning workshops to support their learning and their volunteer work with younger members of our club. Our trainees supported the delivery of football focused activities to 283 individual clients on a weekly basis.
Improved sustainability of the Club: Having an additional 12 qualified football coaches has enabled us to expand our children’s community football programme to engage with an additional 32 local children in the age range 5-8 years. It is anticipated that this programme will continue to grow over the coming year with a further 40 young children engaging in the programme. The additional football coaches have also enabled us to extend our schools football coaching programme with an additional 40 young females engaging on a monthly basis. We are also planning to introduce three additional football teams to our current “football” structure over the coming months. These three football teams will be at the age category 14-16 years, increasing our club membership by approximately 60 females. In developing and growing the specified football focused programmes and club membership we will support significant additional numbers of young females from disadvantaged and deprived neighbourhoods in our community to improve their inclusion and physical health and emotional and mental wellbeing, together with improved confidence, self esteem and self image. It is anticipated that some of these young females will also engage in our non-football activities which will support them to improve their educational attainment and skills for employment.
Building skills and confidence of girls and women:
All 12 trainees reported improved levels of confidence shown by improvements in inclusion and regular interaction with peers, team working skills, communication and goal setting skills. Regular participation in organised football matches and gradual improvements in their performance was an important factor in raising their confidence levels.
Improving health and well being: Approximately 70% of the females who participated in the football coaching and skills practice sessions delivered by our trainees had never participated in organised football focused activities prior to their involvement in the sessions delivered by our trainees.92% of these female clients reported improved physical health with 17% reporting that they had lost weight and felt fitter. All of these females reported improved self esteem and self image and parents, relatives, teachers, social workers and other individuals who had regular contact with our female participants reported that they had observed noticeable improvements in the health and emotional wellbeing of many of the females.
Building social networks: 94% of the 283 females reported that the main benefit they had accrued from their participation was the development of new friendships with peers from within and out-with their own neighbourhoods. They reported that this had improved their inclusion and greatly enhanced their social networks.
Five of the females who participated in our project have become actively involved in the work of our in-house peer mentoring project and they have worked with and supported 6of our young female club members (3- 16 years) who are experiencing issues and challenges which were having an adverse impact on daily lives. Some of these young females are engaged in the social care and/or criminal justice system whilst others experience personal issues and challenges linked to the high levels of poverty and disadvantage which exists in our community. Some of these young females struggle with or have completely missed out on mainstream services and support and they all have low self esteem, poor self image, low confidence and low motivation. Our volunteers dedicated a high number of of hours to provide 1-21 and group support to these young females at their weekly football coaching sessions and through 1-2-1meetings and remote communication, developing strong trusting relationships with them based on honesty, equality and dignity. Parents, relatives, social workers, teachers, etc inform us that they have observed significant positive changes in all of the 6 young females in respect of improved attitudes, behaviours, emotional & mental wellbeing and attendance at school.
Women’s Fund for Scotland has given a total of £21,964 across 3 grants to our grant partner Glasgow Girls FC. We are pleased we have been able to support your excellent work in this way. Thank you for all that you do and for choosing us as your funding partner.