Embedding Physical Activity into the Youth Justice System in Essex, UK

Background:
Despite growing evidence that sport can reduce rates of offending (YEF, 2021; CSJ, 2023), the youth justice system has been slow to embrace it as a preventative or diversionary measure. The Active Essex Foundation’s Sport and Youth Crime Prevention project is an ambitious three-year initiative bringing together the criminal justice system and community sport organisations to work together to use physical activity to prevent young people from being exploited and becoming involved in crime.

Program Delivery:
Capacity building: AEF staff provide support, training and resources for community sport organisations. As a result, organisations are better able to support young people through sport and have the tools to evidence the impact of their work.
Partnership working: Three part-time support workers have been embedded in the teams of system partners. These roles have built referral pathways, connecting young people involved in the youth justice system to physical activity opportunities in their local area delivered by trusted and well-trained organisations.

Evaluation:
The project’s evaluation is led by Loughborough University, with support from AEF.

Conclusions:
Findings from Year 1 (2022-23) suggest that, through the project, AEF has built a strong network of community sport organisations, increased their capacity, and increased partnership working. Physical activity is not yet fully embedded in the youth justice system in Essex, but the project has begun to build the evidence and the relationships required to achieve this.

Practical implications:
The project provides a model for partnership working in the youth justice sector that could be adopted in other settings and generated evidence that can be used to influence the wider system.

Funding:
The project is funded by the National Lottery, Essex Local Delivery Pilot and Essex Violence and Vulnerability Unit.