providing access to sport to youth excluded from the sport system

The focus groups with the social workers show a gap between those who screen social exclusion at a local level (community services) and the sport system. Within this gap, the social workers of the NGO act as a linkage among diverse territorial actors in all the three cities: “We think about our NGO as a bridge, the alliance with the network is fundamental. The sports societies and signaling entities are not connected with each other” (Coordinator, Rome). [...] The agencies (schools, social services, community housing, etc.) that generally deal with social exclusion at a local level—and that are therefore in contact with people who remain excluded from the sport system—are rarely tied with sport clubs, at least in the Italian context. This gap may be overcome by introducing social workers who could bridge diverse systems serving youth access to sport.