“The magic happens when they become a team” | Ken Cowen
If you cast your mind back, you may remember a show on Sky Sports called the School of Hard Knocks (SOHK). With Will Greenwood and Scott Quinnell presenting the show, it focused on helping adults confront issues they have had in life and take steps forward into the world of employment using the sport of rugby.
But, whilst the TV Show was a hit, the charity was actually the brainchild of Ken Cowen, a former teacher from Merseyside, who believed in the capability of sport to help someone turn their life around.
After studying to become a teacher at Cardiff Metropolitan University, Ken went back to Liverpool to work in a school with one of the highest exclusion rates in the country.
“It taught me that team sport has this
very powerful effect. If you give kids real time,
with discipline, you can make a huge headway in their lives.”
“I was absolutely petrified and just trying to survive, quite a few of teachers just seemed hoisted the white flag and I thought I’m not going to do that.
“I started a little basketball club, I wasn’t trying to be their mate, I was just trying to just do a bit of extra sport with them and give them a bit of time. The difference it made in the lessons I was teaching them however was huge.
“It taught me that team sport has this very powerful social effect. If you give children real time, mixed with a lot of fun in a controlled environment, then you can make a huge headway in their lives.
“If children are doing sport, they’re getting active and healthy and creating powerful social bonds. It also improves their resilience, self-esteem and of course provides an alternative from doing things that are less socially positive.”
Fast forward 15 years and Ken was working for a training company in Merseyside. He was asked to come up with an idea to get adults who were either living a life of crime or determined not to work, into the workplace. It was here that the idea for SOHK as born.
“I came up with this idea of teaching them rugby from scratch. I said to the group of young men, ‘In 8 weeks time you are going to play your first ever game of rugby.
“It’s going to be full contact and the guys you are going up against will not want to be mugged off, so you need to step up or walk away now.”
Alongside using rugby as the means to bond the group and get them into a positive mindset, they also got the participants to really think about their next steps in life as well as the practicalities of writing a CV, nailing an interview and coping with the challenges of the work place.
It was at this point that Sky Sports became involved, turning Ken’s idea into a TV show, but four years after the show started, Ken made the decision to turn the concept into a not-for-profit organisation.
So, along with a few friends and ex-England Scrum Half Andy Gomarsall, the School of Hard Knocks was formed.
Whilst the charity started working with adults, Ken admits that they knew early on that they were going to have to work with much younger people as so many of the issues they encountered were so ‘entrenched’ by adulthood.
“We work with the children every single week in the whole school year, for three years. It’s a very intensive intervention.”
Alongside the teamwork and camaraderie that is built between the team, the children and coaches, Ken believes that it also changes their approach to confrontation and even violence.
“We’re in touch with the schools every single week
asking for data, from how many detentions
they get to how many good behaviour points,
and the results are through the roof.”
“Some of the children are from really chaotic home backgrounds and the resulting frustration often manifests itself in real outbursts of anger.
“You may think it’s a bit counterintuitive to play full contact rugby with some of these children but, the opposite is true. When you put them in a very highly organised and disciplined rugby environment, in which clear rules are applied, we are actually teaching them to recalibrate the way they think about physical confrontation.”
There’s often a ‘stormy’ patch at the beginning, but when the young people understand how to approach the physical contest inherent in the game, the results are phenomenal.
“When they eventually get it, their behaviour improves remarkably. We work constantly with the schools to monitor the impact: data from how many detentions they get to how many good behaviour points they accumulate are measured – and the results are through the roof.”
As well as helping the children through sport, SOHK also provides ‘behavioural coaches with a sports or forensic psychology background’ to work with children one on one.
“Some of the challenges are so complex that no single activity is going to meet all the needs, but for us, the magic happens when they become a team.”
SOHK is not just for people who are edging towards trouble, or who are long term unemployed (in the case of the adult work) but also for anyone who will benefit from that sense of belonging that it creates.
“He’s completely transformed because people
were investing time in him and making him feel that
little bit happier for the future, which is a very powerful thing”
Ken gives the example of one child, a refugee, who joined SOHK at the school’s request. He lost his brother in the Jungle, in Calais, and had no idea if his parents were still alive.
“He told us that SOHK was the one half-day of [his] week that he could really look forward to – which is both overwhelmingly sad and yet heart-warming too. In just three years, he has gone from barely speaking English to getting his GCSEs and A levels – and he’s now on his way to college.
“He’s completely transformed because people (school & SOHK staff alike) were investing time in him and making him feel that little bit happier for the future, which is a very powerful thing.”
Although SOHK initially started working with just young men, the charity now has an equal split of male and female participants.
“We are really proud to have got this point – the women’s groups are always nothing short of incredible. Many have had awful times at home as victims of abuse, others are nervous about going back to work after raising families. Others still have had incredible careers that have been cut short through redundancy. Whatever reasons they are there for, they always seem very quickly make lasting friendships and genuinely look after each other.”
Now, on the 25th-26th of August, SOHK are hosting a charity match in which they will be attempting to break the Guinness World Record for the longest game of rugby union ever played.
“It costs us £600 to put one child through
an entire year school of Hard Knocks that’s
half a day a week for the whole school year with
a team of coaches and behavioural coaches”
SOHK will be playing a team put together by the Wooden Spoon, a children’s rugby charity, with the overarching aim of raising £100,000 for the respective charities.
The game will have to pass the 30 hours mark (that’s 24 consecutive games of rugby!) and whilst Ken admits that it is a daunting challenge, it is one that is worth it to continue providing the support that SOHK offers.
“It costs us £600 to put one child through an entire year school of Hard Knocks that’s half a day a week for the whole school year with a team of coaches and behavioural coaches, so raising £100,000 will go a long way to continuing that work.”
Since its conception, SOHK has continued to grow, now operating in London, Cardiff, Fife, Edinburgh and the valleys of South Wales. From piloting the scheme in two schools, the charity now works across 16 schools in multiple year groups.
“We want to care for people properly”
Ken is still looking to the future, trying to reach more people and grow the charity without losing the ability to meaningfully help people.
“I feel there is a lot of work that is to be done – not just in growing the work, but maintaining the quality at all costs. We want to care for people as well as we possibly can.”
If you want to support SOHK world record attempt, or donate to the charity in general, click here.