Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and Sainsbury's Inclusive Community Training
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and the English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) understands just how important physical activity and exercise is to maintaining personal health.
The organisation Children with Cancer UK says that, in the United Kingdom, one child in 500 will develop some form of cancer by the age of 14.
It is known that around 3,400 cases of cancer in the UK each year could be prevented by keeping active.
There is also good evidence that being active can help people during and following cancer treatment. If you are a cancer patient and want to be more active, discuss with your doctor what would work best for you.
For children who do develop cancer, such as football-mad 11-year-old Jarvis from Somerset, healthcare professionals are a vital part of both treatment and recovery.
Sainsbury’s Inclusive Community Training increases the knowledge and skillset of carers, support workers, parents, volunteers and community groups and organisations, to better support everyone to be more active.
It is a creative, informal and informative three hour practical workshop, supplemented by online resources.
More than 2,200 people have successfully taken part in a Sainsbury’s Inclusive Community Training workshop, with a recent participant describing it as an “excellent workshop which gave me fresh and new ideas.”
Physiotherapists in particular could benefit from Sainsbury’s Inclusive Community Training, with its insights regarding adapting sport and physical activity for disabled people and local inclusive opportunities.
In May, a group of trainee physiotherapists told EFDS about what they felt they learned from participating in a Sainsbury’s Inclusive Community Training workshop:
“I felt it was above and beyond what I expected. It was fun and I learnt many ways to modify activities and it made me think of things from a different perspective.”
“It opened my eyes to all the different modifications in sport that can be applied. I thoroughly enjoyed the session. The leaders were great, enthusiastic and motivating, and it made me realise that there is no such thing as inclusion, because if you are talking about inclusion, it means you have been excluding people before.”
Workshops have also in the past been delivered to nurses who work in day centres and care homes, with Sainsbury’s Inclusive Community Training a versatile course designed for a wide range of participants.
During Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, purchase and wear a gold ribbon from Children with Cancer, and help raise awareness of childhood cancer.
For further information, please contact EFDS, email AK4A@efds.co.uk or telephone 01509 227751. Find us on Twitter @Eng_Dis_Sport, Facebook and LinkedIn.
