The Hull FC Community Foundation will use the power of sport to launch a new project aiming to tackle gambling harm amongst vulnerable people facing exacerbated inequalities in Hull.
The Community Foundation has received funding as part of the Community Resilience Fund 2022, to launch a project called ‘Talking Tactics’ to equip vulnerable population groups living in Hull with the skills, confidence, and knowledge to avoid gambling harms.
Activities in the project will be based around a number of things, including creating a sport contextualised education workshop programme for people that explores the gambling harm subject, whilst raising awareness of what risky behaviours are. The sessions will also aim to empower participants to develop a more holistic understanding of their wellbeing.
Hull FC Community Foundation Head of Community Learning, Ed Grady, said: “As the charitable foundation of a professional rugby league club who participate in a competition sponsored by a gambling company, we understand that a significant part of the club’s output is promoting gambling messaging, whether this be inside the ground or through online communications. We believe we have a social responsibility to ensure our local community are supported to avoid gambling harm.
“Further to this, during the Covid-19 pandemic, we delivered two programmes – ‘Empower’ and ‘Tackle It’ – which were both focused on offering responsive services to those in the community facing health inequalities and risk of poorer wellbeing. We supported over 850 people through a number of ways during the three lockdowns. After those lockdowns, we collected some evaluation data to better understand emerging need areas, and we noticed that 21% of people had increased their gambling activities and 32% welcomed support for gambling.
“Our in-person work readiness provision has supported over 120 young people aged between 16 and 24 over the last academic year. Tutors identified a common theme between Monday mornings and students discussing the success rates of their accumulators over the weekends.
“Given that many of these young people are affected by poor mental health, loneliness, and social isolation – coupled with receiving benefits – a clear need exists to deliver educational support to support them make healthy choices.”
For more information on the ‘Talking Tactics’ project, please email ed.grady@hullfc.com.
