The Welsh Sports Foundation Pilot Project 1 was launched with two children’s charities -
Y Bont and ACE (Action in Caerau & Ely). These are known as referral agents.
Each project had up to £1,000 in vouchers for the Pilot Project. The project enabled children in these areas to access sport and provide the WSF with good case studies to build the case for the immediate need for more funding into the WSF.
The unique voucher scheme technology was in the process of being built through a partnership deal with Sport 80, so a manual voucher system was used for the project.
Pilot Project 1 – Results
- Most beneficiaries were active in their chosen sport but at serious risk of being excluded as their facilities could no longer afford to pay for them to continue.
- Examples of success:
- Case study 1 – Family A has 2 children (1 girl, 1 boy), both parents working but struggling financially and could only afford for 1 child to continue with sport, so they chose for their son to continue and remove their daughter from her chosen sport. They make this decision because their son was at risk of getting involved with a local gang and his sport was what kept him from joining / offending. WSF has paid for the daughter to continue with her sport too.
- Case study 2 – Single parent could not afford for her daughter to continue with her sport, despite the discretionary discount that the club gave for the child to continue. WSF provided the funds for the child to continue, the mother volunteers at the club to ensure she is making a contribution too.
- Case study 3 – Young carer, for a disabled single parent and 3 younger siblings was at risk of not being able to continue with her sport due to cost. This is the only hour and a half she gets a week to feel free of responsibility and able to stay fit and have fun with her friends. The WSF has made sure the young carer can continue to enjoy sport.
- All payments were made directly from the WSF to the delivery agent, bypassing the Referral Agent and the individual.
- Working with the FAW PAWB fund provided the opportunity to raise awareness of additional funding opportunities with the referral agents and increased the size of the available funds by 30%.
Feedback from Referral Agents
- All the families have been very grateful for the grant awarded.
- Some of the families have been overwhelmed by the generosity and especially when membership and packages of provision has been awarded.
- Some families expressed relief that they could offer their child something that they were worried they could not provide, and their child would no longer miss out on things and feel different from their friends.
- Two social workers hoped that this provision would help the family in a way which could potentially prevent children coming into care.
- One mother expressed that she was grateful that the award meant they could go swimming as a family and that this would benefit the child’s health. This mother also noted that prolonged periods in hospital meant her child had missed out on swimming lessons in school and that there was now a chance that she could catch up and that this would help her self-esteem.
"One family expressed their gratitude for the provision as it meant they had hope that their child’s energy would be focused positively and that this was the only tangible support anyone could have provided to them in their time of crises."