Accessible and inclusive sports facilities appendices

The Inclusive Club Network launched in September 2023; over time this area will grow and become an archive everyone can keep coming back to on their inclusion journey.

Visit Access Sport

Aspire, a disability charity and community leisure operator, have produced three guides, following their successful ‘InstructAbility’ programme, which helped hundreds of disabled people become qualified fitness professionals.

Aspire EmployAbility Leisure guidance documents | CIMSPA 

• Guide A for disabled people, ‘Training and working in the fitness and leisure sector’, is a guide to inform and inspire disabled people to start a career in the sector.
• Guide B for training providers and awarding bodies, ‘Training disabled learners in the fitness and leisure sector’, supports those delivering training to provide inclusive and accessible courses.
• Guide C for employers, ‘Employing disabled people in the fitness and leisure sector’, provides guidance about inclusion and how to become a disability confident employer and recruit and develop more disabled staff. 

It has created many resources that, whether you are a volunteer in a club or managing a national project, help to engage more disabled people in sport and activity.

There is a filter function to search by topic and find guidance and resources from Activity Alliance.

Visit Activity Alliance

British Blind Sport have created training resources to assist those who are delivering sporting sessions with support and guidance on how to include people with sight loss.

This toolkit aims to provide helpful information to further enhance excellent local work that is currently happening, suggesting ways for clubs and sight loss organisations to work in partnership, as well as offering guidance for those who are in the initial stages of considering accessible and inclusive sport. 

British Blind Sport: general resources

British Blind Sport have also created toolkits to help coaches support people with a visual impairment for specific sporting activities. 

British Blind Sport: sport-specific resources

British Blind Sport have also teamed up with some national governing bodies to run sport-specific coaching courses to support people who have a visual impairment.

British Blind Sport: coaching courses

They encourage people with cerebral palsy to live more active lives by promoting the opportunity, capability and motivation involved in taking part in sport and physical activities. 

Visit CP Sport

They have a range of resources and support for organisations, parents, teachers and coaches to ensure sport and physical activity is accessible and inclusive for people of all ages with cerebral palsy. 

CP Sport resources

Leisure pursuits, including physical activity, are among the top activities people with dementia want to do, but there are a range of barriers that prevent them from taking part.

By becoming dementia-friendly, leisure centres, gyms, sports clubs and community centres can reap the benefits, which include: 

• An improved customer experience 
• Increased revenue 
• Better staff retention  
• Being able to help those with dementia to live happier, healthier lives. 

As part of our collaboration with the Richmond Group of Charities, we’ve funded a project by the Alzheimer's Society looking into the barriers faced by people living with dementia as they try to take part in sport and be physically active.

The Dementia-friendly Sport and Physical Activity Guide details how providers can become dementia-friendly, thanks to evidence gathered as part of the project. We’re equipping the sport and physical activity sector with the resources and knowledge they require to unite against dementia. 

The project as a whole is part of our £1.3 million investment of National Lottery money into the Richmond Group of Charities, who work with those with long-term health conditions to help them get active.

To access the guide, click the link below, from where you’ll be taken to the official Alzheimer’s Society page. You’ll need to complete a short form online to download the document. 

Dementia-friendly Sport and Physical Activity Guide

Their mission is to make winter sports accessible for everyone, regardless of disability, injury, or experience.  
 
DSUK welcome all disabled children and adults, whether they have lifelong physical or sensory processing differences, intellectual disabilities, are deaf or visually impaired, or have experienced a life-changing illness or injury. 
 
They strive to remove the barriers to taking part so that disabled children and adults, and their families can enjoy the freedom, independence and the physical and mental wellbeing benefits of skiing and snowboarding. Snowsport can help unlock potential and build more confidence in everyday life too.

Disability Snowsport UK

They promote and provide regular sporting opportunities for individuals with dwarfism and restricted growth. 
 
They have a range of resources and support for organisations, schools, teachers and coaches to ensure sport, PE and exercise is accessible and inclusive for people of all ages with dwarfism and restricted growth conditions.

They also work with governing bodies of sport to provide sport-specific guidance and resources. 

Dwarf Sport Association UK

Dwarf Sport Association UK resources

Mixed Ability includes people facing a whole range of barriers to participation, including physical and learning disabilities, mental and physical health conditions, age-related impairments, low confidence, or other personal circumstances alongside people who don’t experience any of these barriers.

International Mixed Ability Sports

They support amputees and individuals with limb impairments to find suitable sports or leisure activities based on their needs and abilities.

They have a range of resources and guides to support inclusive provision for amputees and individuals with limb impairments. 

LimbPower resources

They were the first, and remain one of three, organisations working across the UK to challenge LGBTQ+ stigma and discrimination in sport, and work to improve access to sport for LGBTQ+ people and communities.

Visit Pride Sports

Work is currently being undertaken to incorporate Para fencing into the governing body’s priorities, including recreational and GB representation.

Para fencing, previously known as wheelchair fencing, originated at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. It is a static sport where the player is clamped to a piste in a metal frame. Competitive fencing was first introduced in 1953.

It has been a Paralympic sport since 1960 and is now played worldwide. To compete at the Paralympic Games, players must complete while sitting in a wheelchair.

Learn more about Para fencing

They raise awareness of the experiences of blind and partially sighted people and campaign for change to make society more accessible for all, including in sports and physical activity, both as participants and spectators.

See Sport Differently delivers accessible home workout videos, training for local clubs and sight loss organisations, workforce training for coaches, and guidance for stadiums.

Find out more about See Sport Differently

They are dedicated to empowering people with complex disabilities to lead healthy and active lives.

Sense Active have a range of training, resources and support available to help those in the sport and physical activity sector offer accessible opportunities for people with complex disabilities.

Sense Active resources

They work across the sport and physical activity sector and wider communities to ensure young people from underserved and income-scarce communities have equitable access to sport and physical activity.

Visit StreetGames

It supports young people and their families who have multiple adverse childhood experiences or mental health issues.

Visit Star* Scheme

They provide support and guidance on engaging people with intellectual disabilities in sport and physical activity.

Visit Special Olympics GB

They support, promote and advocate for the inclusion and leadership of culturally diverse communities across the sector.

Visit Sporting Equals

They do this by providing support and activities in a range of leisure centres and community spaces.

Visit Sport for Confidence

Their mission is to lead opportunities for more deaf people to participate in sport throughout their lives and for more deaf athletes to perform on the world stage.

Visit UK Deaf Sport

UKDS have a range of resources and training for coaches, organisations and people supporting players in sporting environments.

UK Deaf Sport: how to be accessible

Deaf people's inclusion in sport: e-learning course

Women in Sport have created a guide to support the sector to reframe sport for teenage girls specifically.

Women in Sport: reframing sport for teenage girls

They support people with physical disabilities of all ages to lead a healthier and more active life through movement, activity and sport.

The charity aims to increase participation at all levels, tackling inequalities in sport, improving accessibility and overcoming barriers to engagement.

They have training and resources available to support teachers and coaches to adapt sessions for wheelchair participants.

Visit WheelPower

WheelPower: engaging wheelchair participants in sport

Each centre provides a range of specially adapted cycles, which means that anyone can experience the feeling of freedom, the breeze on their face, and the sense of achievement that comes with inclusive cycling.

Visit Wheels for All

The website provides resources for PE teachers and coaches and running activities for children, and includes resources for those with specific identities such as ethnicity and faith, and girls' resources.

Youth Sport Trust resources