AFC Bournemouth
Participants from AFC Bournemouth's Community Sports Trust have joined forces with more than 200 young people from across England and Wales to create a mentally healthy environment at their football clubs and in their communities, as part of this year’s Premier League Inspires Challenge.
The Challenge is one element of the Premier League Inspires programme, which clubs run on a weekly basis to support 11–18-year-olds who may be at risk of not reaching their potential as they move through the education system and early adulthood.
The Premier League Inspires Challenge empowers participants to take on a social action project and make a difference to the world around them.
This season, young people were tasked with raising awareness of mental health and wellbeing in their communities. AFC Bournemouth's Community Sports Trust representatives, from The Blandford School, developed a project to use walking as a benefit for promoting positive mental health.
The group completed a mine mile beach walk from Vitality Stadium to Hengistbury Head and return, as well as joining with the AFC Bournemouth Community Senior Cherries groups for a walk at Badbury Rings to connect generations fo AFC Bournemouth supporters.
Leighton from the group of young people commented, “walking today has kept me off my Xbox and get me outdoors in nature.”
“It’s great to spend time with my friends and talk to others, as I feel that if they were struggling mentally, they would have the courage and confidence to ask me for support.”
Having come up with their mental health social action ideas, AFC Bournemouth's Community Sports Trust participants joined hundreds of young people at the Premier League Inspires Challenge celebration event at Wembley Stadium on 25 April, where they shared details of their activity with teams of their peers representing 45 clubs from across the Premier League and the English Football League.
AFC Bournemouth's Community Sports Trust Premier League Inspires Challenge team also explored the positive work AFC Bournemouth is already doing to support mental health awareness, including Sport and Social sessions, Men in Mind Groups and Talking Cherries, a supporter-led group.
This Challenge builds upon the Premier League’s ongoing Inside Matters mental health campaign and the League’s commitment as a signatory of the Mentally Healthy Football Declaration in 2020, which brought together all UK football organisations to help create a mentally healthy environment across the game.
Premier League Charitable Fund Chief Executive, Ruth Shaw OBE, said: “The Premier League and Premier League Charitable Fund are committed to working with professional football clubs, fans, players, communities, and partners to remind everyone that it is okay not to be okay and that it is vitally important that we keep up the conversation on mental health.
“Through the Premier League Inspires Challenge young people from across England and Wales have developed some brilliant ideas to create positive, mentally healthy environments at their football clubs and in school, at home and in their communities.”
Launched in 2019, Premier League Inspires creates life-changing opportunities for young people who have been identified by their schools as needing extra support to engage with activities, helping them to develop the personal skills and positive attitudes needed to succeed in life.
Using the power of football, the programme helps to prepare young people for further education and employment through a series of face-to-face mentoring sessions, workshops and social-action projects.
AFC Bournemouth's Community Sports Trust began its Premier League Inspires delivery in 2020 and since then has supported 627 young people through sessions in 38 local schools.
This season, 45 professional football club community organisations across the Premier League and English Football League are delivering Premier League Inspires sessions at their stadiums, in local schools and at alternative educational settings, with partnership support from the Professional Footballers’ Association.
More than 29,000 young people from across England and Wales have received more than 125,000 hours of targeted support through the programme to date.
