The Ross County Foundation releases 2022-2025 CSR strategy

The Ross County Foundation releases 2022-2025 CSR strategy

The Ross County Foundation aims to support their community extending right across the Highlands & Islands. They have long been recognised as ‘The Club for the Highlands’ and their ambition is to continue and elevate that journey.

In 2022, we face unprecedented societal challenges that have an effect on everything and everybody around us. It is their objective to support, encourage and provide pathways for people to live healthier, more developed and less challenging lifestyles. At The Ross County Foundation they will work with local, national and international partners to deliver projects that provide real change in communities and help people realise their potential.

The foundation is extremely proud of the principles that the club has set in delivering right across the Highlands for a number of years and they are now in a strong place to continue to develop this work and add significant layers to what they do. Whether that be in sports participation, education & employability or working with community causes, their focus is on ensuring they can meet the needs of the community throughout the year.

The wellbeing of our Highlands & Islands Community is vitally important to us and we aim to tackle the deep-rooted challenges facing our area and people in the next 3 years. Our three strategy pillars will allow The Ross County Foundation to support, enable and encourage our people to open new doors and be supported every step of the way.

Dale Pryde-MacDonald, Foundation Manager

Across the next 3 years their focus will be on the following three themes:

• Healthy Lifestyles
• Education & Employability
• Community action

Healthy Lifestyles

Football can create opportunities to build healthier lifestyles for all and is uniquely placed to provide many holistic benefits to health & wellbeing. A number of participants on existing programmes have outlined the importance of engaging with activity and the subsequent benefits of social inclusion, a sense of belonging and feeling part of their local communities. With the experiences and skill sets of our personnel combined with the facilities and environments we use and create we ensure that all of our programmes provide a safe, engaging and comfortable place to participate and enjoy a healthier lifestyle.

To create healthier lifestyles the foundation looks to include the below three principles:

• Physical Participation
• Mental Participation
• Holistic Development

HEALTHY LIFESTYLE PROGRAMMES

• SoccerCentres(P1-P7)
• Mini Kickers(3-4 years)
• FFIT (18 years +)
• Football Memories
• March for Mental Health

Education & employability

Their ‘Then, Now & Forever’ mentality is to ensure they can provide pathways that create sustainability to everything they do, including how they can help individuals become better, more educated and equipped to face the challenges of life in 2022. Meaningful change can only be done by the support of the individuals and the organisations involved and their desire to both have the same outcome. By utilising the resources in the Highlands they can create positive, long-lasting education & employability platforms for people to see real opportunities to not only work but to continue in life-long development. Understanding why education & employability is important is an essential focus of our pillar.

There are three areas of development for our pillar, they are:

• Early Years
• Teenage Years
• Early Adulthood

EDUCATION & EMPLOYABILITY PARTNERS

• The Highland Council
• Police Scotland
• University of the Highlands & Islands
• Developing the Young Workforce

Community action

One of the most important things about engaging with your community is understanding the essential needs of the people within your community. In 2022, we face many societal issues that affect everybody across our demographic and the important action can only be taken when we combine the input of our community with our resources to deliver meaningful engagement. Society in 2022 allows them to work closely with individuals and groups and understand the real challenges we all face. This is then coupled with communication and partnership working with service providers, charities and stakeholders to proportionately plan and execute ways to tackle, and deliver on outcomes they want to see achieved.

Our process for doing so means we have to consult and communicate with a wide variety of stakeholders throughout:

• Our Community
• Service Providers
• Potential Funders
• Local Stakeholders

Key Areas of Community Action

• Food Poverty
• Transportation
• Service Access
• Homelessness
• Mental Health
• Child Poverty
• Sickness & Healthcare
• Trauma Informed Practice