Admiral Group has announced funding support for leading national charity, School Of Hard Knocks, as part of its continued commitment to delivering positive community engagement and impact.
In line with its vision to help communities grow by helping people to look after their future, Admiral’s donation is helping School Of Hard Knocks, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary of engagement this year, get back to full delivery of both its adult and work with young people, following the continued impact of the Covid pandemic.
The School Of Hard Knocks uses rugby and other high impact sports as a vehicle to deliver social change. Its work demonstrates that the values of sport, combined with a personal development curriculum and one-to-one mentoring, centred around the needs of the individual, enables beneficiaries to reach their potential.
It delivers three programmes across South Wales, its Schools Programme, Adults Programme, and its Back in the Game online offering. The charity’s Schools Programme reaches children who are disengaged from school and enables them to realise their potential, improve their behaviour and adopt a growth mindset. A third of all exclusions from school are due to persistent disruptive behaviour and the children the charity supports also suffer with low confidence, poor self-control, difficulties with social cohesion and poor communication skills.
The Adult Programme focuses on tackling unemployment, as well as poor physical and mental health. Many participants have extra barriers to employment to contend with such as challenges with their mental health, histories of criminal and anti-social behaviour and addiction.
Catryn Grundy, Programmes Director, School Of Hard Knocks Cymru explains: “As we mark our tenth anniversary, the funding provided by Admiral Group will help us reach even more people in need over the next 12 months and is crucial for both the adults and children we support. This is especially true currently as there is increased need for mental health and wellbeing support due to covid and prolonged periods of social isolation.
“We are delivering our schools programme to over 400 young people each week, in 10 schools across four local authority areas. Thanks in part to the Admiral funding, we are due to increase the size of the programme by 50% in September 2022 and start in schools in a further three local authority areas. This means we will be running programmes in Torfaen, Blaenau Gwent, Vale of Glamorgan, RCT, Caerphilly and Cardiff.
“Many of the people we work with have complex support needs, which often include mental health conditions, adverse childhood experiences, a history of addiction, criminal behaviour and domestic abuse. Our interventions are pivotal in helping people on the right path to better mental health, potential job opportunities, and can mean the difference to young people staying in full time education.”
Danielle Jones, CSR Manager at Admiral Group adds: “School Of Hard Knocks is undertaking vital work in our community to reach those who are disengaged from employment or education, using rugby to empower them to re-engage and to achieve their full potential. The charity helps people piece themselves back together, find their self-worth and overcome the fears and barriers that are standing in their way, and we are extremely excited to be supporting them in this work over their 10th anniversary year.”
