Upskilling young people
Kidz Active role in building a diverse workforce
Kidz Active engage with thousands of children and their families, offering physical activity, enrichment sessions, food nutrition and family days out, supporting residents’ wellbeing and bringing the local community together.
Their delivery combines engaging physical activity with food education and vibrant family events. Building on the success of last year, they expanded into secondary Holiday Activity and Food programme (HAF) provision, with the aim of upskilling young people in coaching and leadership, preparing them to actively support their main HAF team in the future.
Through the Coach Core programme, delivers provide structured training through tailored coaching and leadership pathways, complemented by ongoing mentoring, to build confidence, professional skills and sector readiness for young people.
Completing their first year with Coach Core, was marked as a significant milestone for Kidz Active, reinforcing their commitment to developing future leaders in sport and physical activity.
Kidz Active Coach Core Apprentice
As part of the programme, the apprentice trained on the job across a wide range of projects, including HAF delivery, while gaining valuable coaching and leadership experience. Recently shortlisted for the Community Coaching Apprentice of the Year at the Lifetime Learning Awards, Danny the apprentice, has now completed all assessments and is now fully qualified, progressing into a full-time coach.
Active Essex have played a pivotal role in enabling Kidz Active’s journey from delivering impactful HAF programmes to exploring long-term sustainability and workforce development.
Through strong internal relationships with the national Coach Core initiative, Active Essex were able to identify the work being done by this fantastic locally trusted organisation and recognised the passion they had around creating a diverse workforce. As a result, this demonstrated the power of combining national networks with local place-based knowledge to unlock opportunities for our local deliverers.
By applying our place-based approach and leveraging local insight and trusted relationships, Kidz Active were identified as a key partner. This enabled us to align internal strategic support to create the right conditions for them to grow, innovate and strengthen their impact within the community.Chloe Hinds, Active Essex Lead on Coach Core in Essex
Key learnings
It's important to take time to reflect and understand the learnings from work undertaken, to focus on ways to improve in the future.
Engaging children in secondary schools
Tailored strategies to upskill and develop provision for secondary-aged young people.
Workforce development
Supporting young people to be sector-ready needs mentoring investment and structured pathways.
National apprenticeships
Partnership model is essential for building on existing relationships and overcoming barriers.
Power of partnerships
Local deliverers, Essex partners and national orgs can build on national and local insights.
