FIGHTING FOR: NICCO

Nicco was referred to Empire Fighting Chance by his mother after an incident where he brought a knife into school, leading to him being questioned by the police. Along with regular, violent outbursts towards his family and friends, Nicco had overdosed twice in the months leading up to his referral and was struggling with the turbulent environment at home. Having been diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety, and living through significant trauma, Nicco had also previously been excluded from school. There was no other support available to Nicco and his family, and he had been left feeling like there was no way out.

THE EMPIRE IMPACT

As Nicco began to settle into his sessions, his coach focused the training around how, if he learned to relax more, the decisions he’d make under pressure would be better than when he’s experiencing stress. They began to discuss how this could apply to his violent outbursts at home, which were leading to poor decision making and damaging behaviour. This was paired with Nicco earning the opportunity to start choosing the exercises and designing his own sessions, in a bid for Nicco to begin ‘owning’ his own behaviour and not blaming those around him.

As he became more engrossed in training, Nicco became much calmer at home. He would explain how he felt far less anger towards the challenging situations in his life and was therefore finding home a much calmer environment. He became more confident in himself and how he could handle challenges, with his mum noting that "improving Nicco’s physical confidence has had a great impact on him. He really looks up to his coach and sees him as being such a positive male role model."

Nicco’s past and current situation were putting significant pressure on him and his home life, so his coach focused on increasing Nicco’s ability to work through challenges in a stable, effective way. Nicco was known for his anger and aggressive outbursts, so by understanding that there was nothing wrong with his negative emotions, he began to work through his extreme moods and behaviour and discuss the benefits of waiting for those moods to pass before reacting. During his final session, Nicco said "I'm much calmer and slower to react, and I haven’t had any angry outbursts in ages. Life at home has got much better because of it!".

The significant changes in Nicco’s demeanour and behaviour at home and school were noticed by his mum, who noted "Nico has been transformed. He’s gone from being involved in two knife incidents, and two overdoses, to no incidents; he is 100% less violent. He went from never wanting to exercise and having such bad social anxiety he could barely leave the house, to now loving exercise and being part of a group. He attended Empire’s holiday sessions and met young people with similar stories to him, and he’s flourished. Nothing worked for him until Empire, and we cannot thank you and recommend you enough; to see our child before, and to now see the difference in him is remarkable."

His coach felt that boxing was a great outlet for Nicco’s extreme outbursts. He took on the training and discipline and used it as an effective way of channelling his aggression, which allowed him to react in a much calmer way in his personal life. His coach said "Nicco was a pleasure to coach, he was very positively engaged throughout and always put in 100% effort. Nicco struggled to talk about some of the tougher aspects of his life but as the sessions went on, he began to react more positively to tough situations and learned to wait for his more extreme moods to pass before making big decisions."

THIS IS OUR FIGHT.

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 *Name changed to protect identity. Image used for illustrative purposes only and not connected to story.