Club Doncaster Foundation work with funders & schools to tackle violence against Women & Girls

Over the last two weeks, Foundation staff have launched this term’s targeted group interventions in secondary schools across Doncaster as part of our Premier League Inspires programme.

From now until the end of March, more than 150 students from 11 different schools will engage in a range of classroom and practical sessions to support their development of personal, social, employability and life skills.

The focus of 4 of this term’s targeted school groups is to raise awareness of themes connected to violence against women and girls. This is the third year in a row that the Foundation has delivered a course of sessions in schools linked to this topic.

Unfortunately, the need for this work has been highlighted repeatedly over recent years through both national and local trends.

A series of concerning findings published in Girlguiding’s 2022 Girls’ Attitudes Survey which found that almost a quarter of female students in the North of England feel unsafe at school and held back by issues such as gender stereotyping and fear of sexual harassment.

Statistics show that female students in the North are more likely to be adversely affected by these issues than female students in other parts of the country.

This year, the Foundation has set out to work with roughly 120 female students from Year 8 in 12 secondary schools to develop their understanding of some of the different types and signs of violence against women and girls. Over a twelve-week period, participants engage in discussions and scenario-based learning to explore relevant topics including gender equality and inequality, positive body image, healthy and unhealthy relationships, consent, sexual harassment, online safety and sexting, controlling or coercive behaviour and inclusion.

The scale of the Foundation’s work in this area is a major expansion on what has been delivered previously, with the number of participants and schools involved tripling from 2023-24 to 2024-25. This growth has only been made possible through the joint support of funders in the Premier League Charitable Fund and the South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit.

The Premier League Charitable Fund distributes £35m each year to professional football club community organisations to deliver a range of community programmes that make a positive difference to the lives of hundreds of thousands of people every year.

The mission of the South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit is to take a Public Health Approach towards preventing and reducing violence across South Yorkshire. This means looking at the causes of violence and working in partnership with different organisations to stop violence before it starts, halt it once it has begun and provide ways out for people entrenched in violence.

Ed O’Mahony, Premier League Inspires Lead for the Foundation, has spoken of the importance of this work and the support of funders in enabling it.

“For the last three years we have been delivering targeted interventions in secondary schools in response to the growing threat of violence against women and girls. This work was funded by the South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit in 2022-23, the Premier League Charitable Fund in 2023-24 and now jointly by both for 2024-25.

“We know from listening to the experiences of female students across Doncaster that violence against women and girls is a very real threat. It is vitally important to the Foundation that something is done to support female students to understand the dangers of violence against women and girls and to recognise the signs from an early age to reduce the risk of becoming potential victims in the future.

“Our work in this area is supporting local schools to respond to violence against women and girls by providing additional capacity to raise awareness of topics linked to this bigger theme. We believe that our work in this area is making a real difference and this would not be possible without the support of the Premier League Charitable Fund and the South Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit.

“It would be brilliant to get to a point where there was no need to fund this type of work. Sadly we are unlikely to get there anytime soon, so for now we will continue to do what we can to make a positive impact in tackling the issue of violence against women and girls through our day-to-day work in schools.”

For further information about this work or our Premier League Inspires programme more generally, please contact Ed O’Mahony at ed.omahony@clubdoncasterfoundation.co.uk.