For the first time in the UK, a boxing gym has opened in an NHS facility with Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust giving mental health Off The Ropes a long-term base.
The Trust, which provides a wide range of health and social services in South East London, has given Off The Ropes a 10-year lease, making Goldie Leigh the first NHS site to host a dedicated boxing facility.
Off The Ropes was founded by Warren Dunkley, a former boxer who has worked as an occupational therapist for 25 years with patients facing severe and persistent mental illness.
Dunkley began using non-contact boxing training to help patients, which led to him setting up the charity.
“Once I’ve used it [boxing training] on the wards, the nurses can see if I have a client who is nervous or has pent-up energy, we can use bandages,” Dunkley said. Sky Sports. “With many of our clients, they are put on antipsychotic medication, they are told to lose weight, they have no motivation to lose weight.
“By having boxing trainers get close to their clients, we work with them on some exercises and we build a relationship and they seem to want to keep coming back and keep coming back and seeing us. So we can really help them with their physical health goals.
“It fits really well, because they are also quite isolated. Then it suddenly makes more sense for them to go somewhere during the week. So we also start ticking some boxes with some social goals. They start making friends in the gym.”
Boxing’s effectiveness as a therapeutic intervention is well established in research. Studies show that it reduces depression, improves self-esteem, concentration and “self-agency”, and reduces both aggression and anxiety.
Warren Dunkley is a former fighter, boxing trainer, health worker and the founder of Off The Ropes.
The new gym in an NHS facility will enable the charity to significantly expand its reach, providing support to both inpatients and outpatients.
It will serve users of mental health services as well as young people, people with learning disabilities and those living with Parkinson’s, dementia and other neurological conditions.
“Start making some pillows and we can start talking about all the other parts of a person’s life,” Dunkley said. “With the mental health clients, it’s about trust and building a relationship. A lot of my clients might not trust people in services. They’re being moved around from team to team.
“We’re a more stable anchor for them. It helps them feel like they’re part of something that’s really important.
“Just showing how having a methodical, hard work ethic around doing things gets you results. Whether that result is getting a little bit more fit, maybe going out once or twice a week more, starting to volunteer for a job somewhere and starting to maybe even look at employment and integrating back into mainstream society.”