Everton in the Community is the official charity of Everton Football Club and has been at the forefront of social intervention across Merseyside. It is considered one of the UK’s top sporting charities and firmly established on the world stage of community sports development.
Everton in the Community was the first Premier League community arm to address mental health back in 2008. Since then, the charity has been delivering award-winning, life-changing and life-saving mental health provision across Merseyside, supporting more than 7,000 individuals with poor mental health. As well as supporting primary and secondary school children with their mental health and wellbeing, the charity also supports people experiencing social isolation, those living with dementia, military veterans, middle-aged men and over 60s as well as a female only project.
Through its 240+ dedicated full-time staff and 160+ volunteers, the charity offers more than 40 programmes covering a range of social issues including health, employability, anti-social behaviour, crime, education, dementia, poverty, youth engagement, youth justice and disability.
Everton in the Community and Tackling the Blues
Everton in the Community delivers the programme’s sport and physical activity component through weekly education workshops and physical activity sessions to pupils, addressing critical issues and topics surrounding mental health and wellbeing.
Whilst education workshops provide interactive and engaging activities to promote the learning of mental health and wellbeing themes, its sport and physical activity sessions provide alternative learning activities and promotes practical reinforcement of the educational workshops’ themes.
Everton in the Community is able to integrate the brand of Everton Football Club and the power of sport to promote an array of sporting examples which provides interactive, engaging sessions in a safe space for children and young people who are experiencing, or are at risk of developing, mental illness. The sport and physical activity element to Tackling the Blues looks to build confidence, communication skills, self-esteem, problem-solving, emotional intelligence and mental health literacy within the children and young people who engage.
The Duke of Cambridge
As part of the FA’s ‘Heads Up’ mental health campaign, HRH The Duke of Cambridge sat down with pupils from Springwell Park Community Primary School for a session with Tackling the Blues.
Tackling The Blues pupils hit the big screen
Tackling the Blues pupils from Linacre Primary School were invited to draw their favourite Everton players as part of a project to raise awareness of the importance of positive mental health among young people, where their designs would be displayed to 40,000 people at Goodison Park