Developing the Workforce

Active Sussex invested Sport England’s Workforce Investment Fund into partner organisations in three inactivity hubs in East Sussex. In each area Active Sussex have worked with partners to gain a true understanding of residents’ needs, and how to build the workforce to support them to be active. Rother District Council, Hastings Borough Council and 3VA became the lead stakeholders for the £40K investment to co-design the workforce project and develop a ‘person like me workforce’.

Due to the significant impact of Covid-19 in Crawley, Active Sussex have decided to commit the funding to develop the Crawley sport and physical activity workforce via the Crawley Workforce Project. The Crawley Workforce Project was launched in January 2021. The blended programme of targeted small grants and core course delivery aims to use the learning and workforce principles from the Workforce Investment Fund, to upskill the Crawley sport and physical activity workforce to better engage target audiences.

Between April - July 2020, the main focus of Active Sussex was responding operationally and strategically to Covid-19. As such, the Active Sussex Workforce plan required a flexible approach, ensuring key information was communicated to the sector in relation to the workforce and also supporting key partners involved within the Workforce Investment Fund project in East Sussex. £40,000 grant investment from Sport England

Forums, sharing good practice and improving collaboration between 3 projects

The workforce investment fund has allowed partners to offer training to their cohort of coaches and as a result, has enabled them to deliver additional sessions to target groups and support other Active Sussex programmes.

Daniel Barfoot received funding from Active Rother, helping to increase his confidence and competence to engage inactive participants. As a result, he was recruited to deliver online sessions as part of the Active Sussex Satellite Club Reboot programme during lockdown.

This demonstrates the added value to the locality and the wider Sussex network.