Sainsbury’s Inclusive Community Training 'fun, interactive and for all abilities'
Do you support disabled people of all ages within the community? If so, you could play an important role in making active lives possible.
Everyone has a right to be active, but we know that not all have access or opportunities.
Sainsbury’s Inclusive Community Training has been developed to support you to introduce physical activity and sport to the disabled people you work with. No experience required!
Hannah Brooks, a physiotherapist from Norfolk, tells the English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) about her experiences as a participant at a Sainsbury’s Inclusive Community Training workshop earlier this month.
Hannah’s story:
My name is Hannah. I am 24 and originally from Essex, but came to Norwich five years ago to study at the University of East Anglia (UEA). I graduated in 2013 and have decided to make this wonderful city my home.
I work full time as a physiotherapist in the community, where I come into contact with people with varying physical, mental and emotional needs.
I am a keen hockey player, and also enjoy coaching and umpiring. However, I am currently injured and going through a period of rehab, recovering from recent knee surgery.
I heard about Sainsbury’s Inclusive Community Training through a Sports Academy that I am doing through The Sports Factory at St Thomas Church. This Academy course started in October, and is 10 months long. There are roughly 10 of us, all completing the Level 2 Sports Community Leadership Award. As a group we hope to go to Sierra Leone in 2016 to do sports coaching with children.
I travelled to Sportspark, at the UEA in Norwich, earlier this month, and took part in the three hours of practical training that makes up a Sainsbury’s Inclusive Community Training workshop.
I loved how it was partially theoretical and partially practical. This kept my concentration throughout the session, and kept it flowing.
I also enjoyed how we got to try different things, such as sitting volleyball, and learning how, no matter what physical or psychological needs someone has, you can modify most basic sports and activities to include everyone.
We can all say how we would try to inclusive to all in activities, but it was great to be able to practice this in a practical setting.
I learned how useful the “confidence curve” is, something that we used at the start and end of the session. It is a great transferable activity which I had never thought of before.
I had never heard of the Inclusive Spectrum before - learning about 'open', 'modified' and 'parallel' activities was really interesting, and will definitely be useful in planning activities in future.
I hope to be able to always include everyone in group activities, whatever their needs are. I have never worked with people who are visually impaired or have learning disabilities, but I hope that if my newly-developed skills will help overcome any barriers which I face.
Working as a physio in the community, I come into contact with patients more frequently with dementia - I feel what I have learned at this course will help me engage and work better with these patients.
These sessions are for people with completely varying knowledge in topic areas, and I think that's brilliant. The sessions are fun, interactive, for all ages, all abilities, all sports. The tutoring was great, and I learned a lot!
Sainsbury’s Inclusive Community Training is designed to improve the skills and confidence of those who support disabled people to be more active, and is a creative and informal development opportunity. Over 2,800 individuals having benefited from the initiative. 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.
