We are delighted to offer an roundtable with the internationally pioneering charity, “Empire Fighting Chance” (www.empirefightingchance.org). The charity harnesses the benefits of evidence-led, structured, non-contact boxing for social impact, including: mental health, PTSD and recovery from abuse, community cohesion, confidence-building in girls, youth crime, youth justice, specific learning difficulties and special needs, educational attainment and behaviour. The charity’s results have been so exceptional that it has expanded from its base in Bristol to run a growing network of more than 60 clubs across the UK, and is now working on social impact projects across the world including in the United States.
The Charity has demonstrated positive impact on behaviour and attendance in schools, and several clubs within its network operate in school settings. Empire Fighting Chance is keen to explore with the teaching profession whether there is merit in sharing and expanding these learnings, and whether there may be any way their work can support teachers in managing the exceptionally intense workload and responsibilities.
The roundtable will enable Empire Fighting Chance to explain its work more fully, and aims to be primarily a listening exercise to understand better the challenges faced by teachers in the classroom, understand whether there is any way their work can be practically supportive, (rather than an additional burden!) and if so, how this may work.
Additional recommended reading: “Boxing – The Right Hook” – All Party Parliamentary Group Report on the Social Impact and potential of boxing. (2015) https://www.englandboxing.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/The-Right-Hook-All-Party-Parliamentary-Group-for-Boxing.pdf