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Through peer-led coaching, accredited learning and post-release support, the program helps players build confidence, connection and transferable skills.
Inside Street Soccer Scotland’s prison program, the people taking part are not defined first by where they are. They are players.
That language matters. For Street Soccer Scotland, a nonprofit supporting people facing homelessness, addiction, mental health challenges, poverty and other forms of disadvantage, football is the starting point for something deeper: trust, connection and personal development.
Across Scotland, Street Soccer delivers more than 60 free football sessions and programs each week. Its prison program, supported by Sacro — the Scottish Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders — brings that same approach into custodial settings. There, a pitch can become a place to build confidence, learn new skills and feel part of a team.
The program now operates in 12 prisons across Scotland, delivering nationally accredited SCQF Level 5 qualifications to groups of up to 16 players. SCQF is the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework, the national system for accredited learning.
In the last year alone, the organization awarded 296 certificates through the program.
But the work begins long before the certificate.
“When we work with the players, we are not representing an authority, so they relax immediately,” said Andy Hook, Head of Programs at Street Soccer Scotland. “We are also offering them something they enjoy… the learning and interactions are hidden in the delivery and the work in the classroom and on the pitch.”
Street Soccer Scotland first began working in prisons around 12 years ago, delivering an eight-week program two days per week. The course combines classroom learning with football, using the game to explore teamwork, confidence, coaching, organization and communication.
On the pitch, players take part in drills, matches and coaching activities. In the classroom, they are working toward the goal of delivering events themselves – learning to plan, give direction and manage resources. The course is fully accessible to players who struggle with literacy through more hands on practical activities, not written work alone.
“We stress to the players that these are all transferable skills in their general lives,” Hook said.
That approach reflects how Street Soccer Scotland sees its work more broadly: 30% football and 70% engagement and personal development.
The aim is not to produce better footballers. Football creates conditions for trust. As players take part, coaches build relationships, understand the challenges they face and help connect them to support. The peer-led model also shapes the atmosphere. 60% of coaches have lived experience, including prison coordinators who can relate directly to how players may be feeling while incarcerated.
“They can say that they have been in their shoes,” Hook said. “This helps build a positive relationship.”
That relationship matters in places where routine, connection and trust are hard to sustain. Hook said many players spend long hours locked up during the week, making regular activity especially important.
“Having an enjoyable and regular activity to look forward to makes their week go quicker and gives them a lift,” he said.
That line quietly explains why this work matters for mental wellbeing. Support does not always begin with a formal appointment or a clinical setting. Sometimes, it begins with movement, a coach who returns each week, a team activity or something positive to anticipate.
The final events give players a chance to put the learning into practice. They organize activities, take on roles, communicate with one another and show what they have built. For some, the SCQF certificate may be their first educational certificate. They can add it to a CV, use it in employment or further education applications and point to it as evidence that they are working toward positive change.
The certification ceremony can be deeply personal.
One recent player told Street Soccer Scotland that the course gave him the opportunity to invite his children to his certification ceremony after not seeing them for nearly 12 months. The ceremony also fell on his birthday.
“This course gave me the chance to show I’m still trying to succeed,” he said. “On my birthday it was a great experience from start to finish.”
Another player shared: “I enjoyed myself so much at the tournament I forgot I was in prison.”
Those moments show what Street Soccer Scotland is trying to build: not a one-off intervention, but a relationship that continues after release.
Players can attend the nonprofit’s free football sessions once they return to the community. Through sessions and programs across Scotland, they access structure, support from coaches and connections to partner organizations. The organization also tries to stay in contact with players even when they do not attend sessions, reminding them that they remain part of the Street Soccer family.
For Hook, that continuity matters because many people outside the justice system misunderstand the role programs like this play.
“Many people outside think the system should be only about punishment, not rehabilitation,” he said. “The fact that players have lost their freedom is the punishment.”
By offering the program, Street Soccer Scotland helps players practice skills they can carry into the rest of their lives: communication, teamwork, confidence, leadership and trust.
For the sport for development sector, the program offers a lesson in meeting people where they are. Learning does not always have to look like a classroom. Mental wellbeing does not always have to come through traditional therapeutic services. Sometimes, the first step is a pitch, a coach and a place where someone is seen as fully human, not defined by their past or their surroundings.
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