Street Soccer Scotland: Social inclusion through sport-based programs

Against the backdrop of neoliberalism and the expansion of inequality, there has been a marked growth in the number of sport-for-development non-profit organizations that provide a range of services and programs that were once the responsibility of the state. The amount of published research on these programs has also increased since 2000 (Schulenkorf, Sherry, and Rowe 2016). This literature has offered a variety of insightful critiques of these organizations that struggle to remain sustainable in the neoliberal era, especially as they compete for scarce resources from public and private partners and often promote “successful” program outcomes to secure funding (King, 2009; Wilson and Hayhurst 2009). As the number of sport-for-development organizations continues to expand, and as the competition for funding becomes even sharper, more rigorous and balanced assessments of program delivery is needed. In this presentation, we explore the program delivery of the Edinburgh-based ‘Street Soccer Scotland’ – a non-profit organization providing football programs to over 5,000 homeless community members since 2009. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews with staff, partners, and volunteers, we investigate the non-profit organization’s reciprocal approach to partnerships with other social service agencies, and the challenges and opportunities associated with the monitoring/evaluation of program delivery.