Welcome to the latest edition of the Get Yourself Active newsletter, published by Disability Rights UK. This is our round up of what the Get Yourself Active team and our partners have been up to during the month of February, and what to look forward to in March. Along with some opportunities, news and insight that we hope will be of interest. You’ll hear more from us next month!
New Government Physical Activity Guidelines for Children & Young People
The guidance, which recommends daily physical activity levels, will support disabled children and young people to improve their physical and mental health throughout their lives.
Brett Smith, Director of Research, Professor of Disability and Physical Activity in the Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Durham University explained the importance of the guidelines:
“Physical activity guidelines are a central component of a coherent and comprehensive policy framework for public health action. They are an important information resource, guide national goal setting, and inform policy development to help the public be physically active and improve health, including work tackling wider structural and social determinants. Guidelines also serve as primary benchmarks for physical activity monitoring and surveillance initiatives.”
The guidelines are underpinned by Durham University, University of Bristol and Disability Rights UK’s research. The infographic they are presented in is the first of its kind to be co-produced with disabled children, young people and their families.
You can find an animation of the infographic linked here.
The new guidelines recommend disabled children and young people:
·Undertake 120 to 180 minutes of aerobic physical activity weekly at a moderate-to-vigorous intensity. This can be achieved in diff erent ways (for example, 20 minutes per day or 40 minutes 3 times per week) through activities such as walking or cycling.
·Complete challenging but manageable, strength and balance activities 3 times per week are particularly beneficial for muscle strength and motor skills. For example, indoor wall climbing, yoga, and modified sports such as basketball or football.
·When first starting to exercise, build up slowly to avoid injury. Break down their exercise into bite-size chunks of physical activity throughout the day to make it more manageable.
You can read more about the guidelines in Brett’s blog here
Listen to the Get Yourself Active team
Our Programme Manager Lydia Bone spoke with Nick Bishop from Leonard Cheshire about breaking down barriers, allowing programmes to run in co-production with those who take part.
The podcast also featured the stories of disabled sportspeople, explaining how people can get involved in fully inclusive sports programmes. Nick Bishop also spoke with Donna Robinson, a boccia coach and wheelchair user. Scott Ballard-Ridley, a rower who is blind. And Arthur Lawson, a Leonard Cheshire youth advocate who plays boccia and powerchair football.
Your Stories in 2022
As we move into the new year, we want to hear from you! We’d love for you to share your experiences of getting active in a way that’s right for you. Your thoughts on the latest news or what sport and physical activity mean to you.
We want to share your powerful stories online to help raise awareness of the different ways of getting active. And help other Disabled people feel confident and empowered to take the first steps to a more active life.
Take a video or a photo, send an audio file, or write it down – share your story in your own way. We also want to hear from you if you help get Disabled people active. Read all our stories here
We understand that many of you may feel more comfortable getting active at home.
If you haven’t already, make sure you check out our Active @ Home section on our website. We’ve recently added a range of new accessible content from Videos to Toolkits so you can get active in a way that suits you. The page also includes videos from some of our Together Fund partners.
We want this page to always work for you. If there’s a resource you’d like to see more of – or you have a video of your own you think would be of interest to others in the community, please reach out to the team.
New free toolkit to make sports
Our friends at Metro Blind Sport have worked with UK Coaching on a new toolkit from UK Coaching and Thomas Pocklington Trust.
It contains videos and resources that operators can use to train their staff. It is free to use and ideal for induction and ongoing training. As it is a toolkit on a website and not a course, learning can occur at a pace that suits the organisation and individual.
They aim to encourage operators to train all their staff – from the front desk to the personal trainers – to engage with this training programme. And help blind and partially sighted people have equal access to sport and physical activity
Continuing to tackle inequalities
The Get Yourself Active team is still accepting applications for the Tackling Inequalities Fund (now called the Together Fund). We are keen to continue our focus on groups under-represented in Disabled people’s sport & physical activity.
We would especially like to hear from you if you work with, or are an organisation, representing Disabled people from Black, Asian or Ethnic Minority groups, women and girls, lower socioeconomic groups, or any other under-represented group to become more active. Tel: 0203 687 0771.
Disability Rights UK
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14 East Bay Lane
Here East, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
Stratford, London E20 3BS
United Kingdom
0330 995 0400
