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'Make disability sport a priority' says Alliance Chair

The Alliance’s nationwide sports club survey – the biggest ever conducted in the UK – shows that whilst clubs are keen in theory to provide for disabled people, many are struggling to provide the basic equipment and infrastructure.

The Alliance’s survey shows that:

  • Only three in ten (32 per cent) of the UK’s sports clubs have access to appropriate equipment for disabled people to participate fully in their activity, compared to nine out of ten clubs (89 per cent) that have access to appropriate equipment for non-disabled people.
  • Only 8 per cent of volunteers and staff at UK sports clubs have received training to amend and adapt their sport to make it more inclusive.
  • At 1:10 the volunteer to member ratio at mainstream sports clubs is considerably lower than at disability clubs where it’s 1:3. This suggests that a greater volunteer presence is needed to provide sport for disabled people, depending on the type of sport and the impairments of the people taking part.

The survey also provides an overall picture of what disability sport provision looks like in the UK, showing that:

  • The average sports club has 78 participating adult non-disabled members to four disabled members amounting to 5 per cent of their adult membership.
  • The average UK sports club has 87 junior non-disabled members to three disabled members amounting to 3 per cent of their junior membership.
  • Over 600,000 disabled adults are a member of a sports club – showing that sports clubs are playing a key role in keeping the 1.67m disabled adults who play sport once a week active.

Commenting on the new figures, chair of the Sport and Recreation Alliance Andy Reed said:

A big culture change still needs to take place in many mainstream sports clubs. Investment is welcome and needed, but it’s clear that lack of trained staff and appropriate equipment are also glaring issues – and these things can be remedied far more easily than is often perceived.  Most clubs rely on volunteers to survive, and they are struggling to meet demands as it is. But there is a lot of existing support and funding out there if people are proactive and seek it. Coaches and volunteers often need to take on just a few extra skills – as they would if they were learning to teach a new ability level – to be equipped to bring the best out of disabled participants. We advise clubs to take advantage of the support that’s out there – the English Federation of Disability Sport’s inclusion club toolkit is a great resource which makes sure you cover all the bases when it comes to welcoming disabled people into your club.

Baroness Grey Thomson DBE said:

We need mainstream clubs to face up to the often misguided fears around things like health and safety. They should contact their national governing bodies, local authorities, county sports partnerships and local disability organisations to make them aware that disability sport is a priority for them. We can’t let this potential be wasted.

Tim Hollingsworth, CEO of the British Paralympic Association, said:

This survey by the Sport and Recreation alliance demonstrates that substantially more clubs could be providing opportunities for disabled people. There are several useful tools out there to support clubs to do this, such as the EFDS Toolkit, and we support the Sport and Recreation Alliance’s’s efforts to encourage more clubs to look into making their sessions accessible.

Chris Ratcliffe, director of development for the English Federation of Disability Sport said:

What these findings show is that perhaps there is a general lack of awareness at club level which forms assumptions about what disabled people actually need to take part. The vast majority of disabled people do not need expensive adapted equipment or extra human resources.  Working with the right partners, engaging with local disability groups as well as disabled people themselves, can give greater insight on participant needs, access to the right training and volunteers.  EFDS has developed tools such as http://www.inclusion-club-hub.co.uk/to support this process 

Case study

Nigel Weare is Director of Rowing at The Langley Academy – a school that provides both indoor and outdoor rowing in PE lessons and as an extra-curricular activity.

Two disabled children row alongside 52 other students – one of the children is the reigning British Junior　Indoor　Rowing Champion for the Legs/Trunk/Arms pararowing category.

Nigel says that he could provide for almost any disabled child wanting to row at his school, but can understand why some coaches at mainstream clubs might not feel quite so confident.

If you’re still quite new to coaching in general, still thinking about getting the basics right, then providing for disabled people won’t be high on the agenda. But it’s really not difficult on most occasions. We work with disabled children just like we work with every other child at the club – treating everyone as an individual with different levels of skills and needs. We ask the disabled children about their needs and we work out between us what they are capable of doing, what they find difficult and what we need to adapt to allow them to row to the best of their ability – it often just takes little adjustments. One girl has a visual impairment so I invested in some radios so that when she’s out on the water, we can direct her through an ear piece – giving her the independence to be able to go out in the boat on her own.

Nigel believes that one of the biggest challenges for disability sport at grassroots level is competition and British Rowing’s Development Director, Rosemary Napp, confirms that the sport is reviewing its competition programme for all rowers.

Many rowers with a disability are able to take part in our mainstream events and we support that wherever possible. Looking ahead our new Rowability programme will focus on increasing opportunities for disabled rowers of all ages to participate and compete.

Case study 2

Edward Fuller is the All Ability representative committee member at Harlow Athletics Club – a club which has between 150–180 participating members, including both disabled and non-disabled athletes.

On Mondays the club run’s its ‘all ability’ sessions. Here around 20 people with various disabilities come together to train. Their disability varies over a wide range and the sessions include people with Down’s syndrome, spina bifida and autism.

There are between six and eight regular wheelchair athletes who train in a session every Wednesday which is purely for wheelchair athletes.　 Richard Chiassaro, the British number one sprinter in the T54 class, coaches this group.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are the club’s general training sessions. Here the top level ‘all ability’ athletes are also invited to train, and two T20 athletes regularly do so.

For Edward, volunteers are crucial for providing sport to disabled athletes.  He says:

You do need more volunteers to be able to train disabled athletes. For our general training we have a ratio of about one coach per twelve athletes but for the disabled athletes it’s more like one to six due to the quite severe problems of some of them. We’ve got five coaches at our club who have taken disability inclusion training courses. These are available for all coaches to take. We are just fortunate that our coaches are willing to assist disabled athletes and that they want to come here and train with us. Our major problem is we can’t take on any more club members until we get more volunteer coaches. At the moment it would be very easy to take on too many people for the coaches to train safely.

Edward also thinks that clubs need to be more active in attracting disabled athletes.  He says:

Don’t be afraid to contact other clubs to work in partnership with or other organisations so that disabled people can find you.　 You need to develop a set-up where if disabled person wants to find out where they can play sport locally they can find it. Whether that’s by advertising, visiting schools or the internet or whatever, you just need to be able to be found. You just need the enthusiasm to accommodate disabled athletes into your club.

For more information about the Sport and Reaction Alliance Club Survey click here