This is the latest newsletter of the Activity Alliance, who work for equality in sport for people with disabilities.

Activity Alliance News

Welcome to May’s newsletter. This edition features our new strategy, Achieving Fairness, and the new campaign, Football Your Way.

New strategy launched as poll shows pandemic impact on disabled people

We launched our new three-year strategy as poll findings reveal the growing impact of the coronavirus pandemic on disabled people. Titled Achieving Fairness, the strategy has an immediate focus on how we respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read more on our strategy 2021-2024

England Football launches Football Your Way campaign

England Football, The Football Association’s new home for participation and the grassroots game, launched Football Your Way, a new campaign to help disabled footballers return to the sport and reclaim the moments they have missed, as COVID-19 restrictions are lifted across the country. The campaign is funded by Sport England as part of the tackling inequalities funding programme.

Learn more on Football Your Way campaign

Funding from Sport England to develop See Sport Differently project

The Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) in partnership with British Blind Sport have received £1m in funding from Sport England for three years to develop participation in sport amongst people with sight loss. Despite COVID-19 having a devastating effect on the sporting calendar and landscape, Sport England has committed to funding the See Sport Differently project. The development of the project will have a positive impact for blind and partially sighted people through fair and equal participation in physical activity and the opportunity to experience sport in an inclusive way.

Read about See Sport Differently

Programme inspires next generation of inclusive sport leaders

A ‘lifechanging’ three-year Government programme for young people with and without Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) has given 25,997 participants the opportunity to access inclusive school swimming and water safety resources, experience para-sports as part of fun festivals, and learn new skills.

Read more on the programme.

Make active lives possible with us

We bring our members, partners and disabled people together to work towards our vision – fairness for disabled people in sport and activity. We rely on generous fundraisers to develop and continue our work.

Support Us

Moving more where you are

We are committed to ensuring disabled people can be and stay active. Access exercise advice, workouts, and activity guides to support disabled people. This helps everyone to move more, whether at home, outside or in your local area.

Get Active

Our new strategy, webinars and opportunities

View this email in your browserAnother month has whizzed by. We hope that if you’re back to face-to-face sessions that you are enjoying the opportunity to support your young people, and if you’re not, we hope your preparations to re-open are coming together. Scroll down to find out more about our new four-year strategy ‘Reach. Include. Empower’ and the new dates available to book for the Youth Mental Health First Aid Awareness Workshops, as well as additional opportunities and Sported news.    While we’re putting the finishing touches to the Sported Hub, Your Sported Network is still there with all your downloadable resources, events info and all the Sported benefits and services. There’s also the Sported Member Facebook Group where we post new funding opportunities, and anything else that may be of interest. Please do keep sending us videos and pictures via social media on Twitter and Instagram. We love to see what you’ve been getting up to. The Sported TeamLaunching our new strategy We’ve launched our new and exciting four-year-strategy Reach. Include. Empower.  Our new strategy takes on board what you’ve told us over the past year and uses this invaluable insight to shape our direction and priorities going forward.  We’ll be focusing on where we can make the biggest difference and support you with:Improving physical and mental health – supporting group leaders and your young peopleTackling inequalities both in sport and throughout sport – channel a greater proportion of support to help group leaders and young people who are facing discrimination or disadvantage to have equal access to opportunitiesConnecting community sport groups for collective action – we will help groups become better connected, supporting you to take charge of your own future and work together to create positive change within your communitiesCheck out the full strategy here. Youth Mental Health First Aid Awareness workshops – New dates added! Mental Health Awareness Week saw the first in the series of Youth Mental Health First Aid Awareness workshops delivered by StreetGames. Those who attended said that the workshop was extremely insightful and useful.  The next three dates are now available to book. Due to limited capacity, we can only accept one person per organisation, and you must be delivering sessions directly to young people.   The next dates for the workshop are:  Monday 7th June: 6pm – 9pm Sunday 13th June: 1pm – 4pm *NEW DATE* Thursday 24th June: 1pm – 4pm (limited capacity)  To book e-mail events@sported.org.uk“An informative & interactive workshop” “Very interactive and engaging. Each participant was involved.”As a Sported member, you have access to some great benefits from our partner organisations that can save you both time and money – and in some cases make you money. SNAP Sponsorship and Groop are running information sessions for you to find out more about their services and how to take advantage of your Sported member discount.SNAP Sponsorship Information sessions Tuesday 25th May, 12pm – 1pm OR Wednesday 26th May 6pm – 7pmCould you increase your sponsorship by up to £10,000? Let Snap Sponsorship tell you how. SNAP Sponsorship is an online sponsorship management, education and social sharing tool designed with grassroots volunteers to help all sports clubs toward financial sustainability through sponsorship success.Sported members get 12 months for the price of 11, which works out at less than £9 a month.Hear what Sported member Bates Cottages Cricket Club had to say here and join the lunchtime or evening session to get an overview of the platform and hear how it can generate revenue for your group. Tue 25th May, 12pm – 1pm book HERE OR Wed 26th May, 6pm – 7pm book HEREGroop information sessions Tuesday 1st June, 12.30pm – 1.30pm OR Thursday 3rd June, 6pm – 7pm FREE admin and comms support on the go  From taking registers, sending messages and alerts to your participants and their parents/carers, taking payments or planning events – Groop can do it all!  Join us for a walk-through with the Groop team to see how it could help you save time and money.  Book now on Your Sported Network or e-mail events@sported.org.ukWe’re almost there- and it looks great! Thanks to those who’ve requested a sneak peek, we look forward to welcoming you in next week. Everyone else, watch this space! We’re hoping to launch officially at the beginning of June.  If you haven’t yet confirmed your contact details (check your junk folder for the e-mail), please reply ASAP so we can set you up with a profile.Sported Start-ups Our new Sported Start-ups programme is specifically designed for new groups or individuals at the beginning of their Sport for Development journey or who are at the very early stages of setting up. The programme gives you the option to work in a cohort with other groups at a similar stage or to work 1:1, both with a Sported volunteer.  The programme covers the essentials to get you started through a series of surgeries and resources.   The first cohort begins in mid-June (limited availability) with a second starting in September. For more information, e-mail membership@sported.org.uk.

Here’s the fixture calendar for the season, supplied to the club, with round 1 already confirmed.

There will be three 60 minute games per home fixture over the 6 rounds.

Challenge/Trophy Cup draws to follow.

Key dates for you to keep in mind are:

Saturday 5^th June – Challenge/Trophy Cup Festival at the EIS Sheffield.

Saturday 12^th June – Celtic Cup Scotland, Ireland and Wales in Edinburgh.

Saturday 26^th June – England v Wales at the EIS Sheffield.

Saturday 3^rd July – Challenge/Trophy Cup Final at the EIS Sheffield.

Sunday 18^th July – The Peacock Cup (Wales).

Saturday 18^th September – Wheelchair Grand Finals at Medway Park.

Thursday 11^th November – Wheelchair World Cup Starts.

Here’s a very recent image of the Halifax Panthers squad working out under the watchful gaze of a BBC commissioned film crew at Calderdale College last week.

The TV programme will be out sometime in spring 2022 which will include Halifax players who will feature in the 2021 world cup.

The team’s League fixtures commence at Hull on Sunday 30^th May, where Halifax begin to defend their Grand Final win over Leeds back in 2019.

Mental Health Awareness Week 10-16 May

Watch this space, May 10, 1pm…

During this pandemic, millions of us have experienced a mental health problem, or seen a loved one struggle. Some of us have seen our already fragile mental health plummet, while the support networks around us disappear. And we’ve seen that the support we all need just isn’t out there. For them, for us and for you – we must take this chance to step up the fight for mental health. That means fighting for change, for fairness, for respect and for life-changing support. Watch this space for an exciting new development, May 10, 1pm

Return to Play – are you ready for Step 3?

With an announcement expected on Monday about relaxing restrictions on May 17 do you feel ready? If you are looking for information, Sport England’s Guidance Hub is an excellent place to look.Check out our Return to Play pages, bringing Government, funding advice and NGB advice together. Activity Finder lets people find your activities, and is part of the Openactive push to make booking a dance class as easy as a hotel room.

Mind launch new Mental Health and Physical Activity Toolkit.

Find out more The Toolkit, consisting of 10 guides, aims to help sport, physical activity and mental health providers to support and engage people experiencing mental health problems in physical activity.

It comes on the back of a sector-wide survey hosted in Summer 2020. The survey findings highlighted the need to combine the organisation’s existing toolkits: one for mental health services providers and the other for the sport sector.

The new Toolkit also needed to include knowledge, insight and outcomes resulting from Mind’s Get Set to Go and Sector Support programmes.

The resource has been developed by working with people with lived experience of mental health problems, representatives from the mental health sector and the sport and physical activity workforce.

National Youth Agency Launches Safeguarding and Risk Management Hub

Find out more Safeguarding young people and vulnerable adults is the most important duty of any youth worker or volunteer. In response to reduced funding and resources within the sector, the national workforce has changed. In turn, this has placed greater reliance upon volunteer youth workers.

Leadership Teams – Club Matters workshop, June 15

Find out more – This free online workshop is for clubs, organisations and anyone who works with clubs in their role

Identify the principles of an excellent leadership teamReview a club’s leadership structureHow to improve leadership and producean action plan

Book before Tuesday 7 June 2021

Cancer patients to be prescribed exercise as part of new approach. Launched by Sheffield Hallam University’s Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre – and funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research More

The Tokyo 2020 kit is unveiled. The official Team GB kit for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games has been announced. More

Sport England Blog: Jenny Betteridge, Strategic lead for volunteering, Sport England – How our new Active Lives report has given us a deeper understanding of volunteering in England. More

Work progresses on Spen Valley Leisure centre More

Tour de Walkshire is here in National Walking Month More

 

Welcome to the Get Yourself Active April Newsletter

Spring is definitely in the air! Welcome to the latest edition of the Get Yourself Active newsletter.  This is our round up of what the Get Yourself Active team and our partners have been working on over the past month – and some opportunities that we hope will be of interest. More from us next month. Until then, stay safe…and enjoy the longer, warmer days, including the bank holiday weekend!

Get Yourself Active is hiring! Our team is expanding! We are looking for an experienced Communications Officer to join us.

We are seeking a highly articulate and proactive individual with a flair for communications, with lived and/or professional experience of disability. The post will work closely with the Get Yourself Active team to manage internal and external communications and to engage new audiences and existing stakeholders.  The post will play a key role in ensuring our communications are influential, informative and engaging, as well as leading on work supporting the redevelopment of our website.

The job description and person specification can be accessed by clicking here. To apply, please send your current CV together with a cover letter, outlining your interest in this job and addressing each point in the person specification. The deadline is 9.00am on Wednesday 26th May 2021. Should you wish to apply using another format, please contact us at recruitment@disabilityrightsuk.org. Applications without a suitable cover letter will not be considered. Click here to apply

Tackling Inequalities Fund by Sport England – funding still available

Disability Rights UK (DR UK) is one of the National Delivery Partners for Sport England’s Tackling Inequalities Fund (TIF) and has recently been accepted to continue to deliver funds over the coming months.

The fund aims to reduce the negative impact of Covid-19 and any widening of inequalities in participation rates in sport and physical activity. To-date we have been able to fund almost 40 organisations of varying sizes across England, all supporting disabled people, or people with long-term health conditions, to be active during the pandemic. Projects have included online exercise classes tailored for people with particular health conditions, walking groups, nature trails (photo), bespoke exercise routines and more! Funding has helped to pay for a range of things including, the cost of instructors, specialised equipment and volunteer costs.

The Get Yourself Active team at DR UK is accepting applications, from User Led Organisations (ULOs), or organisations which can demonstrate a user-led project idea, that supports disabled people, and/or people with long-term health conditions, to keep active in a Covid-19 safe environment (restrictions permitting – see below for more details) and in a way that is right for them. For more details, including how to apply, please contact: tacklinginequalities@disabilityrightsuk.org or call Elliot on 0203 687 0771 Click here to find out more about the Tackling Inequalities and other Sport England funds

Check out the ‘Active@Home’ section on our website! 

Despite lockdown measures starting to ease, you may feel more comfortable getting active at home for the time being.

As well as releasing our own accessible and inclusive exercise videos developed from research, which are available on our YouTube channel, the GYA team also created a new section of the GYA website so that you can easily find resources to support you to be active at home. We have collected videos according to which activity you are interested in, which also includes videos from some of our TIF partners. As well as this, we have pages dedicated to other resources, such as worksheets and downloadable resources.

Liddie Bone, Get Yourself Active Project Manager, commented: “Disabled people’s activity levels have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic and during this difficult time, it is more important than ever that we are supporting disabled people to be active in a way that is right for them. Creating this new section of the website means disabled people can easily access resources that have been created by organisations that are doing amazing work to support people to be active during this time.” Click here for to see the Active@Home section of the website

Join the Moving Social Work co-production team
The Moving Social Work project, led by Durham University, aims to produce the first research-led teaching and community-based training materials and resources on physical activity to influence social work practice of today and tomorrow. To ensure the project is co-produced, Disability Rights UK will be developing and leading on a co-production team to help to steer and deliver the Moving Social Work project. We are still looking for a social worker and someone who works in the physical activity sector (such as an Active Partnership) to join the team! If you wish to express your interest in joining the group, please email Liddie – Get Yourself Active project manager.

Sense ‘Activity Finder’ now available
Sense has officially launched its new Arts, Sport & Wellbeing Activity Finder platform to help you to find and enjoy accessible activities, in your own space. The Activity Finder collates over 100+ free accessible activities suitable for people with sensory impairments or complex disabilities, via their website. The launch of the platform reflects Sense’s commitment to make sure no one, no matter how complex their disabilities, is left out of life and will help to tackle social isolation and loneliness for disabled people.

Sport England regularly updates its news and blogs page in response to any government changes regarding sport and physical activity in England. Please check regularly and sign up to its newsletter to stay informed.

Welcome to April’s newsletter. This edition features the latest Active Lives Survey and COVID-19 response.

Latest

Activity Alliance and ukactive CEOs’ joint call for inclusive reopening

We have moved to Step 2 of the government’s roadmap in lifting restrictions. This means more leisure facilities like gyms and swimming pools are opening their doors again. In a joint call, Barry Horne (CEO, Activity Alliance) and Huw Edwards (CEO, ukactive) urge leaders across the leisure sector to be more welcoming than ever to disabled customers.

Read the joint call from Activity Alliance and ukactive

Activity Alliance responds to latest Active Lives Survey findings

The latest publication of the findings from Sport England’s Active Lives Survey shows the ongoing impact of the pandemic on disabled people’s physical activity levels. Disabled people continue to be one of the least active groups in society, highlighting the need for an inclusive and fair return to physical activity. Here, Activity Alliance responds to the Survey.

Read the full response to the latest findings.

In conversation with our Vice President, John Amaechi OBE

Our Vice President, John Amaechi OBE is a respected organisational psychologist and Founder of APS. Our Marketing and Communications Manager, Sarah Brown-Fraser, spent time with John recently to discuss the psychological effects of the pandemic and lockdown restrictions.

Watch the conversation with John Amaechi OBE. 

World Health Day blog: “Go at your own pace”

This year’s World Health Day (7 April) theme is building a fairer, healthier world. Not only are disabled people the least active in our society, the COVID-19 pandemic has hit disabled people the hardest. It is not right or fair that disabled people face barriers every day to live and thrive as active citizens.

Mark Fosbrook, one of our Engagement Advisors, took time out from leading on Include Me West Midlands to reflect on the impact activity has on his life.

Read Mark’s blog.

Make active lives possible with us

We bring our members, partners and disabled people together to make active lives possible. Collectively, we continue to challenge perceptions and change the reality of disability, inclusion and sport. We rely on generous fundraisers to develop and continue our work.

Support Us

Moving more where you are

We are committed to ensuring disabled people can be and stay active. Access exercise advice, workouts, and activity guides to support disabled people. This helps everyone to move more, whether at home, outside or in your local area.

Get Active

Why not get involved in Cerebral Palsy Sport‘s 5k challenge this month. It’s called 5KMay! Raise vital funds & support people with cerebral palsy to be active & return to sport. Simply Do 5k by any means possible – do it in a day or take the whole month, donate £5 and then share with 5 friends

Sign up here https://bit.ly/32X5cvq 

These are the hashtags for the challeneg: #5kMay #returntosport #cerebralpalsy #RunForHeroes

If you need to speak to someone at CP Sport about the challenge please contact Adi Fawcett adi.fawcett@cpsport.org