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The national charity and leading voice for disabled people in sport and activity

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Support your local area to be active with the Sainsbury’s Inclusive Community Training

Are you looking for new ways to engage with disabled people and the disability sector? Perhaps you are actively seeking new ways to increase the disabled users at your facilities? If so, you may be interested in supporting the Sainsbury’s Inclusive Community Training Programme.

One in five of our population is a disabled person. That is a large proportion of your current and potential customer market. Research shows that disabled people are half as likely to be active as non-disabled people. For those looking for opportunities, they more often than not want local activities to try out and continue being active. This puts local facilities in a great position to meet this need.

Through the Sainsbury’s Inclusive Community Training, we are working directly with those that support disabled people. We hope to boost their awareness so they too can be advocates to introduce physical activity and sport.

We are now asking facility providers if they want to be part of this programme, and support every local community to make a real difference. By supporting the promotion of this training to relevant audiences (perhaps hosting the workshop at your facility), your centre could directly benefit from forming new connections with a range of people. In return, they could help you to shape and promote your offer for disabled people.

What is the training for and who delivers it?

This low cost training initiative is supported by £1 million of National Lottery funding from Sport England and delivered by the English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS) and sports coach UK.

The training aims to improve skills, know-how and confidence in delivering sports based activities to disabled people. Costing £10 per person (although subsidies may apply), the initiative has been designed for those who:

  • Represent a community based group or organisation where the primary focus is not currently as a sport or physical activity provider
  • Have direct contact with disabled people of all ages
  • Have the opportunity to introduce physical activity and sport to disabled people.

For example; parents, carers, support workers, healthcare professionals, volunteers and community based groups and organisations.

What success has the programme had?

Since the launch of the training, over 715 individuals who directly support disabled people in the community have attended a workshop. The training has had a considerable impact on participants’ confidence, skills and knowledge in the inclusion of disabled people in physical activity, with attendees rating this 55% higher after the workshop compared to before. The feedback received from participants has also been very positive:

  • “It changed my views and interest to try and be more involved with creating physical activity opportunities for disabled people” Volunteer
  • “The training will help me to promote healthy living, sport and activities to my service users. I think this initiative is highly important to support parents and carers and give them access to the tools available to them” NHS Carer.

To read more about the impact the programme is having on workshop attendees across England, please visit our case study page.

For further information about the programme, including details of workshops taking place near you, please contact EFDS via email: AK4A@efds.co.uk or phone: 01509 227751.