Since the advent of the COVID-19 crisis, The STFC Community Foundation has been keeping in contact and supporting our participants and local community in a number of different ways. 

The main way we’re doing this is through the daily, online content, that we are distributing via our social media platforms with 3 main activities targeted at a range of audiences. These activities include:

• Educational activities using content from the Premier League Primary Stars website – this content is targeting primary school aged children and has included a mixture of Maths, English and Physical Education that aims to combine football with educational activities. This activity is also sent to partner schools for them to utilise how they see fit.

• A general health and fitness activity – This has involved a mixture of pictures and videos encouraging everyone to remain active at home. The content of the activities has been varied to incorporate activities for different ages.

• Football skills and drills videos – These videos have been targeted at development centre participants as well as advanced and elite players with each video differentiated with bronze, silver and gold challenges. 

All this content can also be found on our website under the COVID-19 tag. We’ve also created a special COVID-19 app for this time, Our #KickOutCOVIDWithSTFC app. This contains all the above content, and is easily accessible for participants. It’s accompanied by guides on how to use the app.

Outside of our online content, throughout the lockdown period we’ve been in regular communication with our vulnerable groups including Extra Time (over 60’s), Mental Health and Disability groups, offering them support with any essential needs. A care hotline was set up to assist with the collection of shopping, picking up prescriptions/​medication and dog walking as well as a contact number for conversation. This service has been utilised by Extra Time participants which has seen our Community Officers deliver them shopping and host online catchup conversations using the Zoom meeting platform.

When the lockdown was first announced, the members of our Male and Female Football Fans in Training (FFIT) groups were eight weeks through their course. To maintain their motivation and to continue their education, the Foundation has hosted weekly, virtual meetings on zoom to deliver the content. This has allowed the participants to still access their content whilst still having the support network of not just the community staff but the others on the course. 

Our weekly Premier League Kicks sessions had to be suspended, but the Foundation is continuing to explore ways to continue to engage with our Kicks participants, through activities that they can try at home. The first of these opportunities was an online FIFA 20 tournament for 13 – 18-year olds on both PlayStation and Xbox. This gave 16 Kicks participants the opportunity to interact and stay in touch with each other during the lockdown. We’ve also launched the #AtHomeChallenge for Kicks participants between the ages of 8 – 18. This is a chance for our Kicks participants to stay active at home, whilst also contributing to activities which can help to improve their community through the introduction of social action. Participants will be encouraged to carry out a variety of tasks at home and can send them in either via email or social media for the opportunity to win prizes.

We’ve also been running Zoom group catch-up meetings, with the different teams that we run, including the Girls Centre of Excellence squads, DS Active players and also our Education teams.

In addition to all this, we have also partnered with Swindon Borough Council and our furloughed staff have volunteered with supporting the health and well-being team with the task of delivering food parcels to vulnerable people in the community. We have also asked our participants to design a picture or write some words to hopefully put a smile on the face of the vulnerable people that we are delivering to.

As this lockdown continues, we are increasing our efforts to ensure that we are doing all we can to support all of our participants, as well as our local community. We’re working to ensure that once we get that green light, which isn’t too far away now, we’ll be best positioned to throw open those Foundation Park doors on Day One and get back to doing what we do best.

Stay home, stay safe.