Parent Jem has praised Inspire’s Turn Up & Play sessions for improving the self esteem in her two sons.
Lucas, 10 and George, 7 started attending the weekly sessions two years ago. They initially started with Thursday’s football session, but after deciding it wasn’t for them, started regularly attending Wednesday’s multi-sport session instead.
Jem admitted she was initially apprehensive as the boys have additional needs, and can get distracted in different environments.
“I was worried that others would think they are bad kids when they’re not. It’s not like that here, it was so supportive straight away,” she told Inspire.
Since attending the sessions regularly, she said the difference in her sons had been noticeable.
“Just everything has improved,” she said.
“For Lucas, his self-confidence and his self-belief has improved. He’s got self-esteem issues and finding out he’s quite good at things, and the pride that the coaches give them, it’s made a huge change.
“Before, if Lucas had been gotten out [in a game], he would have stormed out but now, he’s different. His self-esteem and belief has come a long way that even school have noticed it.”
She continued: “I stopped taking them for a little while when things in my personal life got hard, and they started to get riled up again.
“We decided to come back and [sports development coach] Mark just cooled George off completely.
“It took us about 5 sessions of coming again, and they had cooled right back down again to the point where every week, Mark, [project coordinator] Mo and [sports coach] Ashleigh were all saying Lucas is a completely different kid.
“The kids absolutely love them.”
While Thursdays play sessions are solely dedicated to football, the Wednesday programme is for multi-sports with the children getting to play games such as dodgeball, basketball and tag.
Mo spoke about why the weekly sessions had made such a difference to George and Lucas, saying: “It’s because their needs were met, their curiosity was met by exploring other sports.
“They wanted to play a sport that isn’t usually accessible, Wednesdays sessions deviate away from football to give the kids the opportunity to engage in a different physical activity that they wouldn’t usually have the opportunity to.
“That helps build their confidence when the staff coach them, even though their skill level doesn’t get taken into account, it’s more about taking part and having a feeling of being part of the team.”
For more information about Turn Up & Play, visit here.
