The Community Safety Team support the Premier League Kicks event at the JobServe Community Stadium.
On Monday 15th May 2023, 35 Premier League Kicks participants took part in a Premier League Kicks event that was sponsored by the police and the Safer Streets funding grant, at the JobServe Community Stadium. This event was organised as a way for the Community Safety Team to engage with young people from within the local area. The list below shows the activities the participants attended:
- A football tournament.
- A tour of a police van and car.
- Various workshops on topics such as anti-social behaviour and knife crime.
- A free buffet meal.
- Prizes and medals for participants.
This event was funded by the Safer Streets grant and cost around £840 to deliver.
The Premier League Kicks programme uses the power of football and the appeal of a professional football club to engage young people who may otherwise be difficult to reach, in areas of the UK with high levels of deprivation. This is why our PL Kicks programme works closely with the police, to help young people from these areas make the right choices in the community.
We spoke to Dex Adams, who is the Community Safety and Engagement Officer for Colchester District Police, he was crucial in the organisation of the event. Dex said “As a community policing team we regularly attend and engage with the participants of PL Kicks which a great initiative run in our community. This event gave us further chances to continue breaking down barriers in our community and listen to the young peoples voices. Allocating an officer to each team gave the groups a chance to get to know the officers and increase their confidence in speaking to them. After carrying out the football activity we managed to speak about anti-social behaviour and knife crime in a safe and trusting environment, which I believe was beneficial for all involved. Thank you to the Colchester United Community Foundation team for their hard work within the community”
Health and Inclusion Manager for Colchester United Community Foundation, Ed King, who helped Dex with the organisation said “As part of the PL Kicks project we have established a strong relationship with the Colchester Police, specifically Dex Adams. We reached out to Dex to ask if the Police would be interested in sponsoring an event for our Premier League Kicks participants, they very kindly agreed.” Ed went onto say “The event was a huge success, the engagement between the police officers and participants was fantastic to see. Each team had a police officer as their captain, this gave the participants a chance to build relationships with the officers and ask them all sorts of questions. We thank the Police for putting on food and medals for the participants, this made a great evening even better”.
If you are interested in joining one of a PL Kicks venues, please visit - https://colchester-united-cf.class4kids.co.uk/term/81