Increasing Children’s Participation in sports and play

Increasing joy, participation and physical inclusion

About us

Bringing joy to children’s lives

We work with child focused organisations using recreational play and increased physical participation to affect the well-being of children’s lives. Our programmes target children who face barriers to sport and play,  specifically girls, working children and children with disabilities.

Working with children’s organisations, we aim to increase children’s enjoyment resulting in increased attendance, participation, and retention rates.

The mission and purpose of Sports for Joy (SFJ) is to bring joy to children’s lives. We have a great passion for the joy that inclusive games and activities can bring. We believe that bringing more joy to children’s lives raises their spirits which has a profound effect on their well being.

We get children moving and playing more through our two programmes:

INCREASING CHILDREN’S PARTICIPATION IN SPORT AND PLAY

SFJ Clubs

SFJ Clubs increase children’s participation in sport and play. We provide increased opportunity and motivation for children regularly to attend membership-based clubs for play and recreation. We increase children’s enjoyment of their lives through this increased game play. The clubs follow a democratic education model based on freedom of choice, voting and being child led.

IMPLEMENTATION

SFJ Clubs are added separately as a new programme into an organisation’s existing roster/delivery. For an agreed period of time, we work with the organisation to help establish regular attendance in newly formed clubs. The organisation’s staff and children are given training and mentoring to implement the simple SFJ Club model.

METHODOLOGY

SFJ Clubs specifically use physically inclusive and creative game play pedagogy which increases the likelihood of broader participation from more physically marginalised groups such as girls and children with disabilities. The project is aimed at encouraging participation of all children in a locality and game play methods are demonstrated that specifically include everyone by design.

INCREASING JOY, PARTICIPATION AND PHYSICAL INCLUSION

SFJ Training

SFJ Training empowers organisations to increase the impact, quality and effectiveness of their child focused programmes.

BESPOKE TRAINING

We offer bespoke training and mentoring to organisations enabling them to increase enjoyment, inclusion and movement into their existing programmes.

IMPACT AND EFFECTIVENESS

SFJ Training raises impact and effectiveness by implementing use of inclusive and highly participatory methodologies. This is achieved by investigating the organisation’s current provision, then providing demonstrations, bespoke training, resources, mentoring and ongoing support.

Further Information

Our Team

Sports for Joy was founded by Paul McWilliams in 2021

Paul McWilliams

Founder

Paul has a background as a Physical Education/Sports teacher, Teacher Trainer, Sports for Development teacher, Youth Worker and also as a Visual Effects Artist & Trainer. To date Paul has worked with over 2400 children in 4 different countries (England, Bangladesh, India, Romania).

Deb Shil Prosad

Coach

Deb is working in his first year as a professional sports coach. In 2022 / 2023 he received SFJ training and mentoring. He has a background in voluntary football coaching in addition to playing amateur football and rugby.

Further Information

2023 – 

First Employed Coach

In September it was agreed to employ Deb as the first SFJ club coach. Deb’s role has been to establish regular attendance at girls SFJ clubs. They are currently 70-90 girls attending clubs each week.

2022 – 2023

First Partnership

In 2022, an agreement was made for SFJ to work in Partnership with Sports for Hope and Independence in Sreemangal Bangladesh.  This involved implementing the first piloted SFJ clubs alone with training and mentoring of SHI coaches.

2020 – 2021

Sports for Joy – Founded!

SFJ was designed and created. The club model was developed alongside SFJ training for high participation, games based teaching and inclusion. SFJ Website was designed and created.

2014 – 2019

Physical Education (PE) Teacher

Paul worked as a primary school PE teacher at Brackenbury Primary, Coleraine Park Primary, Dawlish Primary and Camelot Primary in London. During this period Paul was rated ‘Outstanding’ at Brackenbury and Coleraine.

2017 – 2018

Sports For Development Teacher

Paul worked for Butterflies NGO for 7 months in Delhi(India) teaching children in poverty as a Sports Coach and Sports For Development teacher and giving staff Sports For Joy style movement based Teacher Training.

2016

Teacher Training and Mentoring

Paul has additionally worked for a Romanian Charity – Fast Romania in Summer 2016 teaching Roma children, fundraising for equipment and giving Teacher Training and Mentoring to their resident Sports Teacher.

2014

Qualified Teacher

Paul is a qualified teacher having completed a Primary Post Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) at the Institute of Education with a Physical Education Specialism.

2011 – 2013

Qualified Youth Worker

Paul became a JNC qualified Youth Worker doing a Post Graduate Diploma with East London University working as a Youth Worker in a number of Youth organisations including Catch-22, Refugee Youth and Synergy.

Our Partnerships

Sports for Joy works with the following organisations

Sports for Hope and Independence (SHI)

Sports For Joy is running a club and training program in partnership with SHI which started in 2023.

SHI is a social service organisation working for social development that provides sports and recreational activities offering the opportunities to play and grow. SHI uses internationally proven methods to use sports as a tool for child and youth development, girl’s empowerment and life skills development of the persons with disabilities.

Contact us now!