Workshop: Active Futures: Co-Creating Health and Justice Outcomes Through Youth Clubs and Sport
This participatory workshop examines how youth engagement, sport and health intersect to support young people from marginalised communities in abstaining from crime. It will build on workshop host, Dr Hammond’s evaluation of the Levelling the Playing Field initiative and its national impact.
Bringing together multidisciplinary researchers, third-sector partners, youth collaborators and young people with lived experience, the event will advance practical recommendations and showcase research on how sport-based youth programmes and youth clubs shape identity, wellbeing and positive outcomes for ethnically diverse youth. The day will conclude with youth-led agenda-setting discussions to shape future research and impact.
Active Futures is a full-day workshop exploring how sport-based positive youth development (PYD) programmes can improve health and support desistance from crime among young people from marginalised communities. Building on Dr Hammond’s Levelling the Playing Field research with the Alliance of Sport in Criminal Justice, the Youth Justice Board (YJB) and partner organisations, the event brings together evidence, lived experience and practice to shape a forward-looking research and impact agenda.
The workshop convenes young co-researchers, academics, practitioners, third sector organisations and statutory partners to examine how programmes influence mental and social wellbeing, psychosocial outcomes and pathways away from crime, and to highlight what works to engage diverse, marginalised youth. A morning session of speaker perspectives will be followed by a youth-led, co-produced agenda-setting session in the afternoon, culminating in a follow-up webinar to share key insights, refine priorities and extend the conversation with a wider range of stakeholders.
