CSP: Living Sport
Living Sport, as the lead partner in setting up this project, started working with a local parent-led charity Welcome 2 Our world in 2015. It soon became clear that the group had several barriers and challenges to accessing sport and physical activity opportunities in the local area for their children who have Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), many with Autism. Following consultation with parents of children with SEND, they told us they felt excluded from existing activities due to them not being accessible, the environment was often noisy and busy which can negatively affect children with SEND, and parents felt judged by others who don’t understand their child’s needs.
Living Sport had the innovative idea of using the local leisure centre at a time when they would normally be closed, thus filling dead time for them and allowing families with children with SEND the much needed exclusive use. Our negotiating skills excelled and the Hudson Leisure Centre in Wisbech was persuaded to stay open past their normal closing time. Welcome 2 Our World Sports Club was born.
This project is working in Fenland, a rural area with the lowest participation rates in sport and physical activity across the county (source: Active People Survey) and high levels of health inequalities (source: Health Profiles for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough). The aim of this project is to provide opportunities for people with additional needs to help them engage in sport and physical activity, improve family coherence and build levels of social trust. This will lead to better physical and mental health outcomes for both the children with SEND and their families including less social isolation. It has worked for the families that have engaged in the project to date, as shown by the following questionnaire responses from parents involved:
‘I attended the Sports Club today and the sheer abundance of unbridled joy from the kids and their wider family was truly inspiring’.
'I think it is absolutely brilliant and our children LOVE IT!!'
'We have really enjoyed ourselves today and made the most of having the time together in a relaxed environment'.
'It was perfect, it has allowed him to have fun in a safe environment and burn off some of his excess energy. It was lots of fun and excitement, that we could all be together as a family'.
'I think everything was very well thought out, clearly organisers have experience of autistic children's needs'.
'Seeing all the children interacting so happily'.
During consultation with the families, it was agreed that when thinking about sporting activities it is important to think outside the box so that activities are relevant and motivate those with SEND to take part. These motivations have been shown to be different from those of children without SEND (source: Local Consultation). Consideration has to be given to the space used for such activities, including the impact of acoustics and lighting. A time-out and relaxation space has to be made available in case of overload. Any activities should offer a sensory area that is calming. By offering these, the project is addressing the potential outcome (barrier) of families feeling they have to leave if their child finds coping difficult at any time as they will have an opportunity to calm down in a safe space within the Sports Club.
Being a new club for the families, Living Sport, Welcome 2 Our World and parents agreed that the opportunity to have a go at a variety of activities and see what suits the children would work best. Parents felt that what has happened in the past is that things have not been given time to work. Many parents find regularly attending an activity difficult as sometimes things do not go well and adapting activities or accessing support at venues when things are difficult has not been recognised. It was agreed therefore that parents should be continually engaged/consulted and supported so that they feel able to access activities and can provide feedback regularly, on both an ad-hoc basis and at set intervals. We used a standard questionnaire to collect data/information.
Living Sport wrote the successful funding application to Comic Relief via the Cambridgeshire Community Foundation, which covered the facility hire for the first 6 months and allowed the club to begin. The leisure centre agreed to a fortnightly booking on a Saturday afternoon 4-6pm, once it was closed to all other users. Fortnightly was suggested by parents as the most popular timing. The booking allowed for the main activities to alternate each session between the swimming pool and the sports hall and the group always had the soft play area and the sensory room available in case of overload. In the sports hall, activities change each session and have included trampolining, badminton, table tennis, tennis, rounders, basketball, volleyball, cricket, table cricket, football, hockey, martial arts (kick boxing, karate and taekwondo), team games and relay races. The most popular sports and activities are run regularly, with new sports being introduced all the time to assess which ones are best for participants and where greatest outcomes are being achieved.
The Sports Club launched with a taster weekend in December 2015 and started officially in its Saturday afternoon slot in January 2016 so has now celebrated its first birthday. The club started with 22 families (parents, children with SEND and siblings), now has 48 families as regular members, and is continuing to grow. Of these, 15-20 families attend each session.
In addition to writing the funding applications and helping set-up the Sports Club through negotiation with the district council leisure centre, Living Sport has been fully involved in its development, finding activity deliverers, volunteers and regularly visiting the club early on. The volunteers include two young adults with learning disabilities who have gained their Level 1 in both Sports Leaders and Volunteering through Living Sport delivering the courses at FACET, a training and day centre in Fenland. Staff at the leisure centre have also started to join in and volunteer at the club. They look forward to the children coming in and have commented on how much the club and the people have developed over the year.
Sports Club is a chance for families to meet other families in similar circumstances and support each other, as well as siblings and children with SEND being able to meet new people and join in with fun activities together. In a relatively short space of time the club has developed, with the support of a small committed band of volunteers and parents, to be a self-supporting group. They now deliver their own sessions at the club and are developing new activities, like day trips and social occasions, for the families to get together and experience an 'ordinary life' in a supportive, safe environment. These families wouldn’t have come together to arrange such things without the existence of this Sports Club.
The children are now developing their own games and saying what they want to do, making new friends and playing team games which they wouldn't normally do in a different environment. Taking part in physical activities has helped the children improve social skills, team work, coordination and physical literacy leading to them having improved independence, self-confidence and emotional well-being. You will see some of these evidenced in our video submission. As the club continues, it will also help young people realise their potential in the future and become active participants in their communities, because they are healthier and more able to cope with the world around them due to their increased levels of social trust.
Jayne Denby the founder of Welcome 2 Our World is delighted with the success of the Sports Club and commented
“Many of our families have been unable to participate in sport in the past due to the nature of their child’s disability. The club's aims were to overcome the barriers they have faced and promote and enable disabled children, their parents/carers and siblings to have fun together in an exclusive and supportive environment. The overall aim of the club is to promote and enable families to adopt a healthy lifestyle, to improve their overall health both physical and mental and to improve the child’s/young person’s sporting and social skills. We actively engage children/young people of all abilities in team games, swimming, and soft play. Many of the children and their families have faced isolation and loneliness. The club is improving all the outcomes for the whole family and is continuing to grow and develop to support the families that come to them”.
To ensure the club remains sustainable there is a cost to attending each session: £6 for a child with SEND, £1 for a sibling, and parents go free but must stay at the session. In addition, Living Sport successfully wrote an Awards for All grant application which has been invested in the Sports Club, and the group themselves continue to undertake varying fundraising activities to ensure their Club can continue to run. Living Sport is also exploring the potential to replicate this model elsewhere in the partnership area.