Case study - Looked after children

Situation

We were approached by Manchester City Council to design and deliver a mountain bike and cycling programme for Manchester’s homes for Looked After Children. The idea was to encourage more young people and staff from the homes to cycle more often as well as taking advantage of the associated health benefits

Our solution

We met with managers and staff members from each home to find out who was cycling and what they would need to encourage more people to do so. We asked each home to appoint a ‘Cycling Champion’ - someone to promote cycling in the home and to drum up interest in the rides. We arranged taster rides at Clayton Vale in East Manchester and a full programme of rides over Summer 09 in the Peak District.

Clayton Vale in East Manchester has a short mountain bike trail (designed by BikeRight!) which is perfect to teach the 4 core skills – and is a lot of fun! The taster sessions went really well and the children and staff finished each session wanting to know when the next ride would be!

The first session in the Summer programme was for home staff members - an opportunity to show them what we would teach the children and the type of terrain to expect on the rides. We ran sessions for 7 homes, the children riding the byways and bridleways in and around Linnet Clough, near Marple. The rides were longer and more technical than at Clayton Vale and delivered a good balance of challenge and fun.

Benefits

• The children gained a huge sense of achievement

• New skills were developed which inspired them to take their cycling to the next level

• The children learned to work as a team in a noncompetitive environment

Other projects

• MCC Unaccompanied Asylum Seeker Children (UASC)

• Macclesfield College education enrichment

• Stockport College education enrichment