The athletes inspiring disadvantaged youngsters to unlock their potential

The Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust helps disadvantaged young people get their lives back on track. Chris Bond went to find out more.
David Collins and Heather Wheatley, below.David Collins and Heather Wheatley, below.
David Collins and Heather Wheatley, below.

THE mural that snakes its way around a stretch of the perimeter wall at South Leeds Stadium is a colourful reminder of the London Olympics and Paralympics and last year’s golden summer of sport.

“Our legacy, our future,” it says, sprayed in large letters, alongside words like “determination”, “excellence” and “inspiration.” A year on from the Games and the question of legacy and how we encourage younger generations, in particular, to do more exercise is a hot topic. It’s one that the Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust is closely involved with.

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The charity was set up five years ago by the former British Olympic 800 and 1500 metres champion, to help disadvantaged young people by harnessing the inspiration and support of retired athletes. Since then the DKH Legacy Trust, which receives funding from Sport England, has reached 100,000 young people, many of who have gone on to find jobs or voluntary work, or get into college.

It has recently set up in Leeds where its Get on Track programme works with youngsters not in education, employment or training – so-called Neets – which includes some of the most disadvantaged members of society. It’s estimated there are as many as 1.5 million Neets aged 16 to 25 in the UK, but the Trust believes its work is making a difference.

Adam Whitehead is a former European and Commonwealth swimming gold medallist and an athlete programme manager with the charity. “We’re trying to get these young people into education, formal training, or some kind of volunteering,” he says, explaining what the programme is about. “They learn things that a lot of us perhaps take for granted, like how to work as part of a team. They also do a community challenge which gives something back to their local area, so the next time they go for a job interview it makes them far employable.”

The former athletes act as mentors and use their own experiences to help boost their confidence. “We’re trying to give young people the skills to be ready for work and what gets young people coming back is the relationships they form with some of the athletes they’re working with. There’s no other programme in the country that uses elite athletes like this,” he says.

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It all sounds very laudable, but how do you reach some of the most marginalised people in society in the first place? “We establish local partnerships with organisations that have access to this group of young people and the referrals come from these community links. So we’re here in Leeds for the next four years but we want to sustain that relationship way beyond that.”

Amanda Coulson is a former British boxing champion who retired last year and now works as a mentor for the Trust. She says there are a lot of young people who are desperate to make something of their lives.

“A lot of them come on their own, some come with friends, but they come because they want to try and get their lives back on track. You can see them at the beginning thinking ‘what am I doing here?’ but they get involved and start to get that self-belief.”

The programme includes first aid courses and a sports leaders course, and spends a lot of time building up the young people’s fragile confidence. “By the end of the course they’re talking positively about themselves. We get them to realise what employers are looking for in interviews, the way you speak to someone and how you present yourself.”

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As part of their community work the group in Leeds went to Herd Farm, on the outskirts of the city. “They built a sensory garden for the disabled children up there. They went there day after day, it was baking hot, and the sweat was dripping off them. They weren’t getting paid but they were doing it because they wanted to make a difference – and they have.”

Amanda points out that although mentors like her have a sporting background, the programme isn’t simply geared for fitness fanatics. “Because we’re athletes they might think it’s going to be full of sport, but it’s not just about that. Yes, there are lots of activities but it’s about developing as a person so that you become more employable at the end of it.”

Around 65 per cent of those who take part in the programme get some kind of opportunity on the back of it. But what about those that don’t? “We run a programme for another year called ‘Keep On Track’ and the athletes come back regularly over the next year and work with that person,” says Adam.

“We’re always looking for more opportunities. If a local firm can offer an apprenticeship we can get a young person ready for that apprenticeship.”

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For many of those who take up the programme it’s the first time they will have been given any kind of encouragement, which Adam believes makes it even more important that we try and help them. “Today’s youth have it far tougher than any other generation previously and we’d be doing them a disservice if we didn’t try to help.”

Heather Wheatley is a 21 year-old from Beeston, in south Leeds. She signed up after hearing about the programme in a local supermarket and says it has already changed her life. “I’ve got more confidence now. Before I didn’t have any self-confidence at all,” she says. “I’ve also met other young people who are around my age, people who’ve been in a similar situation.”

Heather left school at 14 with little in the way of qualifications and has spent the past five years on benefits. She also got into trouble and ended up getting a 12-month community order which she breached, that led to her being sentenced to nine months in prison.

But thanks to the course she feels she now has a future and has set her sights on opening a youth group for troubled teenagers. “It changes your life,” she says, of the Trust’s programme. “It gives you the confidence to talk to new people and it helps get you into college, or to open your own business like I want to do.”

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She’s planning to go to college, where she wants to study retail, and is looking to do voluntary work in youth clubs to get the experience she needs to make her dream a reality. “I’m proud of myself for coming on this course and getting this far, because before this course I wouldn’t have known the first thing about what to do.”

But now she’s determined to turn her life around. “I just want to talk to young people and tell them that life isn’t about crime. I’ve done bad things and been to prison and I don’t want other young people to have the experiences I had, because it’s not nice. I’ve been out of jail for two years now and I’ve got my life back,” she says.

“I don’t want to be on benefits all my life I want to have my own wage and be able to say to people ‘look how far I’ve come. Look where I was and look where I am now. I’ve done it.’”

Ned Brown, the Get On Track national programme manager, says the Trust’s aim is to help people like Heather to help themselves rather than hand them something on a plate. He believes this approach benefits society in the long run. “The money you invest in a young person doing this project you get back within 12 months in terms of other costs that you save.”

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He says they work with young people from different backgrounds who often have different needs. “A 16 year-old who’s just left school and a 25 year-old who’s just come out of prison are very different. So it’s not about getting people a job in a shop somewhere and saying ‘you should be thankful for it.’ That’s not our ethos and it’s just not going to work long term.

People need to be doing something they feel passionate about, because they’re likely to do it well and longer term they’ll have a better quality of life, their children will have a better quality of life and they will make a more positive contribution to society, which is what it’s all about.”

For more information about the Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust visit www.dkhlegacytrust.org

Getting back on track

The Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust was set up five years ago by the former British Olympic 800 and 1,500 metres champion and uses former athletes to work with and inspire disadvantaged young people.

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Over 50,000 young people have benefited directly from the Trust’s programmes with the organisation committed to helping a further 200,000 young people by 2016.

104,563 young people have been reached by the work of the Trust so far.

The Trust’s Get on Track programme is now working in nine regions across the UK.

Athletes have given more than 460 hours of mentoring to support homeless young people on the Sport for Change programme.

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