Thanks to funding awarded by the Alec Dickson Trust, Young Leaders from across the Swim England North East Region have been given the opportunity to attend an Inclusive Activity workshop delivered by the Activity Alliance in partnership with UK Coaching.
The workshop provides practical learning experience for groups. Through a range of exercises and tasks young volunteers bring key inclusion principles to life and create accessible activities without the need for specialist equipment. The group environment provided an opportunity to connect and learn from others in an engaging manner with similar minded people.
So far, two workshops have been delivered which have catered for 37 young volunteers aged between 14 and 18 years old from 24 different clubs representing each of the aquatic disciplines.
When asked for their feedback of the training and development opportunity, the young volunteers responded as follows:
- Overall enjoyment of the training opportunity: 80% replied Excellent, 20% replied Good.
- 100% of young volunteers said that they had a better understanding of how activities can be made more inclusive.
- 100% of the young volunteers who replied said that they would recommend the training to others.
Areas where they will be able to put what they have learnt into practice include:
- Aquatic Club 60%
- Other sports settings 60%
- School/College or education setting 80%
- Everyday life 80%
Example of things which the young volunteers learnt which gives them a better understanding of individuals with an impairment and how activities can be adapted to help support them included:
- How you could modify activities to make them more inclusive to a wide range of people by either adjusting the activity or using equipment.
- How to include everyone in the different parts of aquatics and some of the common disability’s.
Many of the young volunteers have since gone onto complete the Young Leaders Event Volunteering module and will be volunteering at the 2022 British Swimming Championships which are taking place at Ponds Forge, Sheffield between the 5th and 10th April.
If other young leaders are interested in getting involved with the young leader programme, please contact us at swimnortheast@swimming.org.
