Chelsea Football Club is continuing to work with young people who live in deprived areas of London through Football in the Community's workshops.

FITC are educating young people on the effects crime can have by working with them in initiatives such as KICKZ and Positive Futures where, through the language of football, they can learn to become responsible members of society.

One of the problems that exists in London at the moment is knife crime, to help counter this the Metropolitan Police Service recently launched Operation Blunt, an anti-knife campaign designed to encourage the idea through its website that carrying a knife is not a good look. FITC have come on board with this programme to help educate young people about the dangers of knife crime in our local communities.

'We are combating knives quite a bit at the moment because there are a big issues with it,' said Daniel Gill, youth development manager for Wandsworth.

'We make it hit home a bit more in our workshops, the consequences if you stab someone, the cost of it, the trauma to the individual's family. Things they don't see when they stab someone because they are not thinking of the consequences,' he added.

One initiative from Operation Blunt is getting people to dress up as clowns in an attempt to prove carrying knives is not a good look and FITC are continuing to be proactive in delivering like-minded schemes.

'We are doing constant behavioural work, which is where you are giving people the ability to reflect, think and make judgements before they do something,' explains Ian Jordan, FITC's personnel attainment community training officer.

'If you are informed of the implications of knife crime then you may not want to do it, just like if you are aware of the effects of drugs, it can make a difference.

'A lot of young people say cannabis is not that bad because they have no idea of the implications on mental health, they don't know how it can affect their lives, they just see other people doing it and they think it's fine.

'It's the same thing with knives; they have heard of people being stabbed and surviving. They know that 50 Cent got shot nine times and lived, so they think maybe guns aren't quite so bad.

'So we show some of the consequences and realities of it and hopefully we will have a positive effect,' adds Jordan.

FITC's aim is to help young people become responsible members of society and perhaps even future members of the team, whether it be as coaches or tutors.

'We may have a young person who will start off in the KICKZ project and by the end of it they will have done some levels of coaching and they will be able to put something back into the community,' added Jordan.