Community Trust
Margate FC Community Trust was established in February 2015 and became a registered charity in April 2015 partly in response to the findings of a comprehensive local needs assessment that found there was an urgent need for practical support for young people, their families, older people and other vulnerable sections of our community. The Trust was dormant for 3 years due to sweeping changes in the Club ownership, however, in 2018 the Trust was reignited and now continues to go from strength to strength to deliver projects across Thanet.
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Vision / Mission:
To use the power of football (and sport) as a catalyst to help those in our community with particular reference to young people, old people and vulnerable people.
Through football we will engage people across Thanet targeting issues including; disaffected young people (Thanet CCG report 2017), people suffering from economic inequality (Thanet Economic Profile 2017), NEETs people (KCC Thanet Datapack 2015), people at risk of falling into crime and/or exhibiting antisocial behaviour (Thanet CCG report 2017), older people at risk of suffering Social Isolation and Loneliness (Kent Public Health Observatory 2018).
Our mission is to improve opportunities for people living in the local community. This will include improving access to sporting activities, improving physical and mental health, family circumstances, education, employment and social inclusion. Our underlying approach is that through holistic, engaging and empowering interventions we can support people towards more positive productive lives in our local community.
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Values:
Our work, both what we do and how we do it, is rooted in our core values, these include:
Respect: We aim to treat all those with whom we work, whether clients, colleagues or partners, with respect, compassion and dignity.
Inclusivity: We want our services, activities, staffing and organisational culture to reflect the lived experience, views and voices of our clients and service users.
Openness: We want to build a work ethos and environment that is welcoming, transparent, reflective, and that models the world we want to see.
Professionalism: We believe in the importance of working to the standards of best practice and integrity at all times.
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Projects and Achievements:
Young Carers Project: Providing respite days for Young Carers at Hartsdown Park during Margate FC home matches.
Young Carers face a multitude of barriers and disadvantages, at a young age they can take on the caring responsibilities for a family member who has long term illness, disability, mental health conditions and in some cases caring for those with addictions. This would be a daunting proposition for an adult, never mind a child.
Throughout this project the Trust was able to reward Young Carers by providing respite days at Saturday home matches of Margate FC; the goal of these days was to recognise the sacrifice they make and to celebrate their involvement on the day. The respite days were comprised of; arriving for a fun football coaching session with the Margate Youth Football Club in the morning, their choice of Lunch, meeting the players as they arrived and getting their match programme signed, a personalised written piece in the match programme (highlighting what a wonderful person they are), they would be given a gift bag which included family cinema tickets given by our partner Vue Cinema, they would then watch the game from the Board Room with the Directors and have dinner at the Club.
Many of the Young People who attended this project became members of the Youth football team and many still come back to this day to watch Margate.
NEETs Project: Using football coaching and matches as the catalyst to reach those not in education, employment or training.
The Trust delivered a 26 week engagement, education and placement programme to young people aged between 17-25 year olds across the most deprived areas of Thanet (according to the Index of multiple deprivation, KCC IMD 2015).
Football was used to break down barriers often associated with reaching deprived sections of any community. Over the course of the project we delivered weekly football sessions where attendees learned to deliver football coaching sessions, deliver fitness sessions & fitness tests, helped to teach them problem solving skills and taught the attendees how to communicate ideas to a group (communication and organisational skills are essential to delivering coaching sessions and these are transferrable life skills that will benefit the attendees in the wider community).
During the course of this project it naturally evolved to also help tackle the growing gang culture within Thanet. We engaged with this element through our partnership with “Breaking the Cycle” to reduce the number of people being pulled into gangs due to a lack of guidance.
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Homeless Project:
The Trust delivers a weekly project for homeless people across Thanet which uses football as the catalyst to engage with the most disadvantaged people in our community.
We utilise the facilities at Margate FC’s home ground “Hartsdown Park” to offer hot food, warm showers, laundry facilities and fun football training sessions to engage with the homeless community. Whilst engaged we will also offer access to professional support networks to give opportunities to open bank accounts and set up email addresses which will in turn enable access to the government benefits system with the goal of helping to get the attendees into accommodation and off the streets.
We work closely with the Thanet District Council, specifically the RISE Team, to help all attendees meet the challenges of rough sleeping. We have a rotation of services available which include access to mental health services, access to dental care, access to medical care, production of essential documents such a birth certificates and access to assisted living amongst many other services. The project also offers breakfast and a cooked dinner, access to showers and shaving equipment, laundry facilities and respite through board games, card games and computer games. This is all wrapped up in our football coaching sessions which give a unique fitness and physical health benefit to everyone on our project.
The goal of these services is to; improve physical health (bathing, clothes washing, food and exercise), improve mental health (improve self-worth/self-esteem, exercise, combat loneliness and isolation), improved self-image (haircut and clean clothes), increase social cohesion as this project will help integrate these often-ostracised people back into the community (reduce anti-social behaviour, raise community awareness of social issues affecting people within their community) and to improve access to peer and professional support networks.
Recently South Eastern Railway have partnered with the Community Trust to help with this project and now offer a “drop off point” for people within the community who would like to donate items towards this project. This is an invaluable help as the station has expansive opening hours meaning donations can be made at all times day and night.