The Be The Change programme covers both mentoring topics and multi sports to enhance positive mental health and awareness amongst young people, delivering 45 minutes of both over the hour and a half each Thursday.

Since the Be The Change programme has begun, we have covered the topics of emotions, gratitude, social awareness, the harms of social media and gang awareness. This has been an enjoyable process and one in which the young people on board the programme have taken to quite quickly. The emotions section has helped most of the group immensely as they are now able to regulate their emotions within a variety of places e.g school and home. Social awareness has provided the group with an understanding of what is happening within their close surroundings and globally, rather than what they see and hear on online platforms.

Within the sports aspect of the programme, so far we have covered football with the next topic being basketball. Not only has the sports element helped to improve the mental and physical well-being of the participants, it has also helped them to build bonds with each other and enabled them to learn how to work as a team. This will then lead to helping them in later life when they enter into work situations.

We have also had a visit from a group of young men playing within the Birmingham City Football Club Academy. They spoke to the participants about what it has taken for them to reach the heights of which they are at now and where they further aspire to be. This has sent encouragement and inspiration to the participants who can see that they also can achieve their dreams with hard work and determination. Big thank you to the young men Romelle Donavon, O’Shea Ellis, Cuba Mitchell, Cameran Eubanks, Trevan Sanusi Deniro Cabey