CAMPAIGN TO HELP LEISURE INDUSTRY MAKE GYMS MORE ACCESSIBLE TO ALL
The Matt Hampson Foundation is launching a campaign to improve accessibility in the health and fitness industry, and to help make gyms more accessible for our beneficiaries and other people with disabilities.
Beneficiaries regularly tell us how inaccessible many gyms are for them and how they are not confident they can attend these spaces independently.
Statistics around disability, sport and activity show the scale of the issue.
Increased value
According to the most recent census, 24 per cent of the UK population report having a disability, equating to more than 16 million people. Also, the Activity Alliance found that 81 per cent of people with a disability want to be more active but feel unable to do so.
In our survey of gym owners and personal trainers, roughly 75 per cent said they would not feel confident to include someone with a disability in an exercise class.
This begins to highlight the lack of accessibility and inclusion within the industry, and the Matt Hampson Foundation is uniquely placed to improve it.
Our campaign provides the opportunity to improve lives of people with disabilities beyond the reach of the Get Busy Living Centre and to improve professionalism in the industry to increase the perceived value within healthcare.
The ultimate aim is to create a world where any person with a disability can attend any commercial gym and find a space that works for them and professionals who understand how to work with them effectively.
The Matt Hampson Foundation team has a unique combination of professional knowledge, lived experience and strong communication skills to significantly improve this area which, combined with our charitable status, allows us to remove several of the barriers which have prevented improvement in the industry.
How the Foundation can help
The campaign is two-fold:
- Knowledge and Education
- Community and Collaboration
The initial focus on knowledge and education will provide increased awareness of accessibility concerns and an understanding of how to effectively work with people with disabilities, allowing the Foundation to create networks of well-informed professionals to move into the second part of the campaign.
The Foundation is creating a CIMSPA-accredited training course for personal trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, and other professionals in the industry to attend a weekend at its Get Busy Living Centre and gain the knowledge and understanding required to effectively coach people with disabilities.
We are also developing seminar days for gym owners/managers to bring staff to the Get Busy Living Centre where the Foundation can give a surface level of training to increase confidence in working with people with disabilities. These will be FREE to attend in return for running awareness and fundraising events for the Foundation. There will then be an opportunity to book on to courses with greater depth of training in the form of either a CIMSPA-accredited professional development course or a day with the Learning and Development team focusing on leadership and teamwork.
Community and collaboration
The campaign will also start important conversations as the Foundation team will present through conferences and expositions, podcasts and written media, highlighting the importance of accessibility within the industry alongside the commercial opportunities if fulfilled appropriately. We will lobby existing training providers to address disability inclusion within standard training as we believe this should be part of every personal training qualification.
‘Community and Collaboration’ will provide a secondary focus following the improvement in ‘Knowledge and Education’. As professionals in the industry are educated around disability inclusion, we will be able to form stronger networks of informed and inclusive coaches and personal trainers.
Be part of the change
We want to help create a better world for people with disabilities, and the health and fitness industry can play a huge part in it.
The Matt Hampson Foundation sees on a daily basis the impact that the health and fitness industry can have on individuals. The industry has been undervalued in the wider healthcare world, but we see the potential for it to be an instrument for change and want to help its practitioners to realise that potential.
If you wish to take part in this campaign or would like your team to attend our training and awareness event, contact the Foundation’s sports therapist George Thompson by emailing george@hambo.co.uk
