Blog: 'Older people love the activities, and have really surprised themselves'
The English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) website features a blog post every Friday through the year.
October's theme is older disabled people, with the first of the month being the United Nation's International Day of Older Persons.
This week, Alison Hartley from Age UK Blackburn and Darwen discusses implementing the Inspire and Include programme at a local level.
Alison's blog:
Age UK Blackburn and Darwen were approached by the national team to say that a pilot project was being launched called Inspire and Include.
We won our bid in the summer of 2013, and we’re about to enter Year 2. It’s a project in two halves: to train volunteers in a Level 2 Sports Leader Award and then to use those volunteers to run sports sessions. It can be any sport, more or less.
I am an Ageing Well Co-ordinator at Age UK and I have been doing this job for a long time. The Ageing Well Programme is all about keeping people active as they get older, and we felt that Inspire and Include fit into what we were already doing.
But what we had never had was the opportunity to do some of the more demanding activities, in terms of time, cost and manpower.
Blackburn and Darwen in Lancashire is quite a poor area really, classed as one of the most deprived in the country. People are sometimes of the opinion that all sorts of activities aren’t for them, but we want people to just come along and have a go. We have found that once people try it they love it.
It means a lot to me that we help people to develop the mentality that they can do whatever they want, regardless of their age or ability.
Age UK Blackburn with Darwen have been offering all types of activities for a long time. Working with a whole range of community organisations, including local disability groups, we built on these networks to encourage people to attend and take part in the Inspire and Include programme.
We also advertised in the local paper, on our website and so on, and from the very first event we were fully-booked, even over-subscribed. Sailing, scuba diving, even trampolining all went down really well.
There’s a lady in her seventies who attended a scuba session – a very basic Discover Scuba course. She was quite timid initially, unsure whether she could do it. She was quite nervous, especially the first week, when she entered the water. But now she is full of confidence – she even enjoyed a bit of flirting with the instructor!
And this lady even cancelled her holiday with her family in Scotland so she could come to the last session! Despite her holiday already being booked, she told her family they would have to wait for her because she wanted to make the final lesson.
And a couple of other participants have used some of the skills they have learned on their summer holiday as well.
In this area, finances are perceived by many people as limiting their opportunities to be more active. And if you’re a socially isolated older person, and sadly many people are, then it can prove hard for you to find out what’s going on in your local area.
"A lot of the activities which we put on are inclusive"
So our challenge is to get the message out there, and the best way to do that for us is to involve older people’s peers.
It’s true that a lot of older disabled people don’t regard themselves as disabled. People often tell me they can manage when they sometimes can’t.
We don’t make our activities solely targeted at older disabled people, but at older people in general. Inspire and Include specifically targets older disabled people, but we’ve always made the activities suitable for anyone over 50 who would like to come.
That works well, because no-one feels excluded. A lot of the activities which we put on are inclusive, and we’ve deliberately selected them to be so.
The future for Inspire and Include looks really good. We’ll begin with more volunteer training and that will last until December. Some activities are still continuing and after Christmas we’ll be offering more new taster sessions. Then that’s it for the two year project, but we want to continue to offer more inspirational activities and are currently looking at ways in which we can do this.
If you think Inspire and Include might be for you, then it most certainly will be. Come along and give it a go. Plenty of people who were nervous initially have attended and loved it, and have really surprised themselves.
