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What better way to start the new year than with an exciting new role to get your teeth into?

In January, I joined the Richmond Group of Charities as the new programme director leading the We Are Undefeatable physical activity programme following a significant stint running behaviour change programmes in the active travel sector.

With Sport England funding recently confirmed up to March 2028, it was a great time to join the team and get cracking.

A busy year from the start

We Are Undefeatable is a game-changing programme, bringing together an impactful behaviour change campaign with thought-leading policy, and influencing work to support and encourage people with long-term health conditions to be active in ways that work for them.

Throw in a new strand of place-based pilot work starting later this year, plus lived experience voices underpinning all we do, and we’ve got a huge amount to offer the sector and our key audiences.

So, unsurprisingly, this year is shaping up to be an exciting one already.

To kick us off in January we launched our new place-based approach, inviting expressions of interest from a range of areas, all of whom are already connected to the Sport England place expansion work.

Our place-based work will build on our experiences so far working with Blackburn with Darwen and Lancashire on local versions of the We Are Undefeatable campaign to support places to embed systems change, increase opportunities for movement and frictionless pathways to physical activity for those with long-term health conditions. We look forward to announcing our new partnerships in the spring.

Earlier in February, we held our inaugural Lived Experience Network session.

This group will be pivotal as we move into the next phases of the programme, ensuring we are keeping the experiences and perspectives of our key audiences at the heart of our deliverables.

It’s also already proving valuable to our partners (including the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine and the Active Partnerships National Organisation on the Moving Together programme), tapping into key expertise as meaningful contributors to work in development.

We’ll be lining up more opportunities for this collaborative working over the year and will continue to demonstrate to our network the impacts of their involvement.

From the blood‑and‑thunder drama of para ice hockey (I challenge anyone to watch a match and not feel exhausted) to the debut of mixed doubles curling, the Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympics Winter Games delivered far more than sporting excellence.

We’ve witnessed what human potential looks like when barriers are removed and inclusion is real, but climate change is shifting and rebuilding those barriers – making them higher, harder and, for some, insurmountable.

This is because climate change exacerbates inequality, threatening the hard-won gains made by disability activists over decades and, while progress has been huge, the extreme change in our weather and its effects on Earth are a stark reminder of how fragile that advancement is.

We even saw the impact of climate change at the Games, with some athletes voicing concerns that the March schedule for the event is now too late in the year and that competition conditions were being impacted by warm 'spring-like' weather.

The lesser known dangers of climate change 

Evidence submitted to Parliament is unequivocal: disabled people are more negatively affected by the health and social impacts of climate change than the general population – not primarily because of their impairments – but because systems already fail to meet their basic needs.

People living with disabilities – who are already twice as likely to be inactive according to our research, but who gain the most for their wellbeing from being able to take part in sport and physical activity – are disproportionately affected by rising heat, greater flooding risk and disruptions to accessible transport.

Sport England’s mission is to enable more people take part in sport and activity, but extreme weather is already making that harder.

From washed-out pitches to heatwaves that make outdoor sport unsafe, extreme weather has already prevented three in five adults in England from being active.

Climate research consistently shows why this happens and it’s simple and disheartening – disabled people are routinely excluded from climate adaptation planning.

Globally, 80% of national climate strategies fail to reference disability, leaving huge gaps in preparedness and emergency support.

And wherever disabled people are mentioned at all, they are often labelled as ‘inherently vulnerable’ – a misconception that shifts responsibility away from systems that fail to include them.
 

When torrential and constant rain hits it’s harder to manoeuvre a wheelchair outside. When a ramp floods, when accessible transport is disrupted, when a facility closes ‘for a few days’, some people lose far more than a chance to exercise. They lose independence, community and joy.

If we want to protect the magic of sport and movement – plus the hard-won progress of inclusion in sport for people with disabilities – we must protect the planet that makes sport possible.

That is why Sport England’s mission to help people get active now include helping the planet stay stable.

In May 2024, we launched Every Move, our first environmental sustainability strategy, to help the 150,000 sports clubs and 98,000 facilities across England sitting on the frontline of climate impacts.

We backed this with more than £45 million of National Lottery funding and already more than 570 interventions are underway, including solar panels on roofs, energy efficient systems in leisure centres or redesigned outdoor spaces to cope with flooding.

These changes cut carbon and also keep facilities open, safe and accessible for the communities who depend on them most.

On top of these, all of our partners must have sustainability action plans in place by March 2027 as a funding condition.

This isn’t a box-ticking exercise, but about futureproofing the places and spaces that people rely on to stay active, healthy and connected as communities, including our swimming pools, village halls, football pitches or athletics tracks, to name a few.

Community action agains climate change 

It’s great to see how sport is willing to innovate to face the disrupting weather conditions.

Football and all-weather pitches are working with us to explore transitions away from rubber infill and to increase recycling capacity, with the ambition to be the first in the world to have a fully sustainable system by 2035.

Elsewhere, leisure centres are switching to more efficient systems and community clubs are testing and implementing changes.

Be it the guys at Whalley Range Cricket & Lawn Tennis Club, who are planting trees on the outskirts of playing fields to better soak up excess water, or the river clean-ups hosted by Fulham Reach Boat Club – an organisation doing great work through Row to Rhythm, a project for individuals with visual impairments.

Actions like these collectively truly add up to major impact.

Going back to international competitions, the challenges facing the Winter Paralympics, and winter sport more widely, should not drive despair. They should galvanise us instead, because sport has always been about rising to the moment and responding to the now.

And right now, the moment demands that we confront climate change not just as an environmental issue, but as a justice matter – one that threatens to undo decades of progress in making sport accessible, inclusive and transformative.

If we want a future where Paralympians can still inspire the world from real snow and real ice, and where disabled people everywhere can access the benefits of movement, we must act together and we must do so right now.
 

International Women’s Day is almost here and while it’s always a time to celebrate progress, it should also be a moment to consider what’s still holding women back from being active.

For the This Girl Can team that means confronting the barriers that continue to drive the gender activity gap. A few years ago, one of those obstacles became impossible to ignore. 

Facing the unacceptable 

In 2021, through This Girl Can’s partnership with ukactive, I started looking more closely at women’s experiences in gyms and leisure centres. What we found was uncomfortable reading. That was the start of Safer Spaces to Move. 

A significant proportion of women told us they had experienced some form of sexual harassment in these spaces and for younger women aged 16–24, those incidences were even higher.

Gyms and leisure centres are spaces designed for health, confidence and empowerment yet, for many women, they come with an extra layer of vigilance.

That doesn’t sit comfortably with the ambition of This Girl Can, which has always been about creating environments where women feel free to move in whatever way works for them without judgement.

And while feeling judged is one thing, feeling unsafe is something entirely different and unacceptable.
 

The research forced us to confront something important: if women don’t feel safe, they won’t feel free; and if they don’t feel free, their participation will always be limited.

When we spoke to operators across the sector, there was no denial of the issue. To our delight, there was a huge amount of willingness to act, although there was also some uncertainty on how to do it.

Because how do you tackle something as serious as sexual harassment in a way that is meaningful, proportionate and practical? How do you communicate about safety without inadvertently making people feel more anxious?

That tension became the starting point for Safer Spaces to Move.

I want to make something very clear – this was never about calling out the sector, instead it was about supporting it.

We worked with organisations like CIMSPA and Women’s Aid to make sure any guidance we developed was grounded in expertise, legally robust, survivor-informed and realistic for busy gym environments.

One of the biggest lessons that we learnt along the way was that policies alone don’t change experiences. Culture does.

Helping positive change

You can have all the right procedures written down, but if the members of your staff don’t feel confident using them, or members don’t know they exist, their impact is significantly limited.

That’s why the most recent phase of the project, which we've launched earlier this week, has focused heavily on communication and culture, which made us consider questions like: how is safety talked about in our gyms, clubs and sport and physical activity centres? How are expectations set in these environments? Do members understand how to report an incident and trust that it will be taken seriously? And how are staff trained to respond?

We also tested messaging with women who use gyms and then sense-checked it with operators on the ground.

We went back and forth, refining language and practical steps so that what we produced didn’t feel alarmist or theoretical, but usable and reassuring. This is because our work isn’t about amplifying fear. It’s about building confidence.

On International Women’s Day, we often talk about breaking barriers.

Sometimes those barriers are structural; sometimes social and sometimes they’re the quiet assessment and security checks women make in their heads when entering a new physical activity space: "Is anyone watching me too closely? Are there other women around here? Can I do this exercise without feeling on display? Will staff step in if something happens?"

I think if we’re truly serious about closing the gender activity gap, we have to address all of these.

Safer Spaces to Move is part of our response to these barriers and sits alongside everything This Girl Can stands for: visibility, confidence and the right to take up space. Not just in theory, but in practice as well.

Because progress for our sector isn’t just about encouraging more women through the door.

It’s about making sure that when they walk in, they feel they belong there – fully and safely, and that’s something worth committing to this International Women’s Day and every day, before or after.
 

For more than ten years I’ve led the Sport and Safer strategy at StreetGames – a national sporting organisation committed to bringing sport to the doorsteps of young people in underserved communities.

Ten years of partnerships. Ten years of learning. Ten years of seeing what happens when sport shows up consistently where it’s needed most, and here’s what I now know: a decade of sport and youth crime prevention has changed many young people’s lives through sport, but we’re only getting started.

The policy moment is here

The conversation has changed.

Government strategies now talk about Safer Streets, Youth Matters, Child Poverty, Pride in Place, Freedom from Violence and Abuse and Fit for the Future.

And the common thread in all of these? That place matters, prevention matters and community matters.

The Government’s emerging Young Futures Programme – particularly its Prevention Partnerships and Hub model.

At StreetGames we have been doing something similar: identify vulnerable young people, focus on those in the 30% most underserved communities, connect them with trusted adults and engage them through high-quality, hyper-local sport, via a network of Community Partners.

The evidence has grown up

A decade ago, much of our work was powered by instinct and experience, but today it’s backed by robust research.

Our Theory of Change – Sport, Youth Offending and Serious Youth Violence was authored by Loughborough University, resourced by the Youth Endowment Fund and shaped with input from Sport England.

It sets out clearly how sport can reduce risk factors linked to youth offending while strengthening protective factors that keep young people safe.

That theory underpinned the Ministry of Justice’s £5m Youth Justice Sport Fund, which now informs more than a dozen place-based partnerships with Active Partnerships, Police and Crime Commissioners and Violence Reduction Units.

This isn’t theory gathering dust, but action that's shaping investment and practice, and that proves that when sport is delivered intentionally, it protects.

Why sport on the doorstep works

At StreetGames, we focus on doorstep sport – making it accessible, affordable and local. But this isn’t just about keeping young people busy. It’s about building identity.

Well-designed sport creates trusted adult relationships, safe spaces in the heart of communities, positive peer networks, emotional regulation and self-control, plus a sense of belonging.

These are protective factors – and protective factors matter.

The insights emerging from the evaluation suggest that the benefits of these roles stem from how they connect as no partner plays just one role.

The magic of collaborative work

The System Partner investment has given organisations the opportunity to think beyond their primary function, build stronger relationships and adopt more collaborative, system-focused approaches.

We are sharing this emerging learning, and our revised theory of change, so that these insights can be used as a tool for conversation.

By understanding the unique contributions and how they fit together, we hope this evaluation is helping Sport England and others to better understand its place in the system.

January is a difficult month for many of us. It’s dark, cold, wet and the glow of the festive season feels a long time ago.

But it’s also a moment when millions of people make a conscious decision to reset – to move more and invest in their health.

That’s why January matters so much for gyms, swimming pools and leisure centres. It’s consistently their busiest month of the year and not just because of New Year’s resolutions.

But beyond the first month of the year, there is a growing understanding that physical activity is preventative medicine and that a healthy population drives a healthy economy.

The places we move are of critical importance.

Earlier this week, alongside ukactive, I visited three very different facilities in one day – across both the public and private sector.

What struck me was how similar the stories were.

Operators talked about strong footfall, rising memberships and people coming through the doors for more than just exercise.

They’re coming for health, of course – but also for confidence, connection, and support.

This feels vitally important in a time that is characterised by increasing isolation, screens and polarised views.

Spaces open to everybody

Another feature which stood out was the remarkable diversity of the people there – from teenagers arriving in their uniforms after school, to the group of retirees who had originally been referred by the next door hospital and now were coming four days a week (and spending as much time over lunch as in the class).

It was also fantastic to see the level of innovation and use of technology to bring health and leisure closer together – with sophisticated health checks, devising personalised programmes for each individual, linking to 'e-gyms' and other virtual support.

This is the preventative health agenda in action. It’s getting active from the ground up and it sits at the heart of our ambition at Sport England, working with our partners to help millions more people become active.

January brings this ambition to life, but the real story is what’s happening year-round.

The scale and growth of the gym and leisure sector are significant.

The UK Health & Fitness Market Report 2025 shows a record 11.5 million people are now members of a health or fitness club – up 6.1% on the previous year – with 616 million facility visits recorded, an increase of 8.2%.

These are not short-term spikes. Participation has been growing over consecutive years, supported by a unique infrastructure of public, private, large, medium and independent operators working across the country.
 

Sport England’s Active Lives Adults survey 2023-24 reinforces this picture.

Fitness activities and swimming continue to be major drivers of physical activity behind walking, with 904,000 more adults taking part compared to the previous year.

Demand is being driven by what people value most.

Polling from ukactive shows that 77% of members join a gym or leisure facility primarily to improve their mental health and wellbeing.

People also cite better sleep, increased confidence, managing health conditions and making new friends. This is about quality of life, not just physical fitness.

We’re also seeing important shifts in who is taking part. Female participation continues to grow, particularly through group exercise and classes.

Projects like Safer Spaces to Move, delivered with This Girl Can, are helping to remove barriers and make facilities more welcoming and safer for women.

Key community assets

Our latest Moving Communities report shows participation in public leisure has increased for every age group over 45, while gym activity is rising among under-16s, over-65s and people living in the most deprived communities.

Since 2017, the number of children and young people taking part in gym and fitness activity has increased by more than 12%.

Standards matter too. Facilities are improving every year, driven by initiatives such as The Active Standard, Quest and FitCert, ensuring that quality, safety and inclusion keep pace with growing demand.

All of this sits squarely within the Government’s priorities for economic growth and improving the NHS through the 10-year plan.

Health drives wealth and the social value created by being active is immense.

The sector contributes £122.9 billion in social value each year, including £15.9 billion in healthcare savings and £106.9 billion in wellbeing value – the equivalent of £2,600 per active adult – and more than double that for people with long-term health conditions or disabilities.

We gain £6 billion in productivity, thanks to a healthier workforce that takes fewer sick days.

The sector creates £5.7 billion in revenue and supports hundreds of thousands of jobs, many for young people at the start of their working lives.

These are extraordinary numbers.

January is important. But the real opportunity lies beyond it.

Gyms and leisure centres are not just places we go at the start of the year; they – and the people that work in them – are essential community assets, powering healthier lives, stronger communities and a more resilient economy all year round.
 

He wasn’t lazy. He was bright, funny and desperate to be out in the world. But his local park felt unsafe, the youth club had closed and the nearest sport sessions cost more than his family could spare.

By the time he came to my paediatric clinic, what looked like a 'health problem' – low mood, poor sleep, weight gain – was really a place problem.

Why local spaces are key

We often talk about children’s health as if it starts in the hospital or the GP surgery, but as I explored in my recent BBC Radio 4 series, Three Ages of Child, the real foundations of health are laid much earlier and elsewhere: in homes, schools, streets and parks – places where children feel they belong in their own areas.

Sport England’s latest place work and research puts into numbers what many of us see every day – like the fact that over half a million children, one in ten 12-17-year-olds, say they don’t feel they belong in their community.

This means that almost one in five don’t feel proud of where they live, often because there’s nowhere for young people to go to, and because of the worries about crime and antisocial behaviour.

Take a step back and look at how this paints a stark picture of children growing up in places that feel unsafe, unwelcoming and not really 'for them', so it’s no surprise that in those conditions activity levels are low and health problems multiply.

The same research also points to part of the answer.
 

When asked what gives them a sense of community – beyond friends and family – the top answer from young people was sports clubs and activity groups.

Anyone who has ever watched a child beam with pride after football training or a dance class knows why: a club is not just about exercise; it’s about belonging.

It offers a safe place to go with people who know your name and that offers the chance to be part of a team.

Dangers of the postcode lottery

But access to those opportunities is deeply unequal.

In England’s most deprived places, over a third of people are inactive, compared to around a fifth in the least deprived areas – a postcode lottery for physical activity that deepens health inequalities.

As a paediatrician, I see every day that a child’s postcode can be a stronger predictor of their health than their genetic code.

When local streets feel unsafe, there’s nowhere affordable to go and young people don’t feel they belong, it shows up in their bodies and in their minds.

If we care about the future of public health, we have to turn our thinking on its head, because health isn’t built in hospitals. It’s built in communities.

Exercise and sport are a kind of miracle cure – for health, wealth and happiness – but only if everyone can actually take part.

According to research by Sport England, every pound spent on community sport and activity brings multiple pounds back in benefits to health, wellbeing and the wider economy.

That’s why I welcome efforts to work in a genuinely place-based way – including Sport England’s commitment to invest in the areas facing the greatest challenges.

But beyond the work of any single organisation, the principle stays: you can’t fix place-based problems with purely top-down solutions.

Making children proud

For me, this is what it looks like to move from treating symptoms to changing systems.

You can’t lecture a child into feeling proud of their area or prescribe their way out of a broken play park.

But you can bring together the people who know that place best – including children and young people themselves – and invest in the spaces, clubs and connections that allow them to move, play and belong.

That means co-production, not just consultation: listening to what families say they need, backing trusted local organisations, designing activities that reflect different cultures, bodies and lives and being in it for the long haul.

Our children are telling us they want to feel proud of where they live and that they want to be part of something bigger.

Working locally, listening deeply and backing places over the long term is how we start to make that real – street by street, pitch by pitch, park by park.
 

Two years ago I shared my first blog for World Children’s Day to raise awareness of children’s rights.

Whilst progress has been made in our sector, the words of a member of a newly formed Youth Advisory Group (YAG) on behalf of the Children’s Coaching Collaborative (CCC), proves there is still work to do.

He said that children’s rights are something that he heard about in primary school, but that he now only finds “in random news articles". This young man is now 16!

However, ensuring that young people have positive experiences of being active that are safe and fun, and that also respect their rights, is one of the areas we at Sport England, and a number of partners across the sector, have been advocating for in the past few years.

And there’s an article about children’s rights in sport by Liz Twyford, from UNICEF UK, that I think is key because it highlights the subtle but important change that means putting the child first to make a difference, and the impact that coaches have on those they work with.

Supporting young people to Play Their Way

Play Their Way exists precisely to champion children’s rights in sport and physical activity.

The campaign was launched in 2023 with the idea of taking a child-first approach to coaching, to ensure that their rights, needs and enjoyment are always prioritised, so they can have a positive experience of being active.

The campaign has been gaining supporters non-stop and in September this year we celebrated reaching a milestone of 10,000 registered members.
 

In a recent blog by our head of children and young people, a survey was shared to understand the range of youth voice and resources used across the sector.

Thanks to those who contributed, it has confirmed that listening to children and young people is an established priority with many brilliant examples.

However, for some, more support is needed to ensure a meaningful and sustainable youth voice practice to ensure children and young people feel included and supported to shape decisions affecting them through ongoing opportunities.   

Welcoming the Youth Advisory Group

To keep engaging and embedding the voice of young people in a meaningful way into the work of the CCC, earlier this year young people were invited to apply to join a YAG for our sector.

The initiative was led by Streetgames and saw 12 young people aged 14-19 with a range of experiences and backgrounds being 'recruited'.

Over the summer they spent time getting to know each other and understanding the role they would play as part of the group.

Within their applications, they were asked why they felt young people participating in shaping sport and physical activity opportunities was so important.

I was impressed by their thoughtful, positive and passionate responses that took into consideration not just themselves, but their peers too.

Some comments that I found particularly insightful mentioned that hearing what young people had to say is important as it “ultimately allows more young people to be able to access sport” (Poppy, 18).

That being listened to, allowed young people to have “a sense of empowerment” that made them see they’re “in control of the future” (Tasnuva, 16).

And, ultimately, that speaking out allows them to shape their own opportunities by
“influencing the accessibility and culture of sport for years to come” (Isobel, 18).

The group will be encouraged to share their experiences, views and opinions on coaching to inform the ongoing work of the CCC and will receive support to develop their own understanding of their rights. 

There are also other organisations with great initiatives to put children and young people’s views first in the sector.

For instance, the Positive Experiences Collective are hosting a range of resources and support connections to inspire advocacy for physical literacy, to help children and young people develop a positive and meaningful relationship with being active.

And the Centre for Youth Voice recently relaunched to continue to amplify the voices of young people and their impact. I recommend you check out their free online training and events on their website.

The future is young

Next month we’ll be releasing the Active Lives Children and Young People survey, covering the 2024-25 academic year.

This time we’ve introduced a new question to help us understand to what extent young people are heard by the adults delivering activity to them, which will provide a baseline to shape our work moving forwards.

This has only been a snapshot of the work we know is happening within the sector for children and young people, but we will continue to raise awareness of their rights.

For now we can all do this by listening to their voices and working with them to design and provide more opportunities to support all children and young people to be active, so they can enjoy it and gain the benefits that movement can bring into their lives both now, and as they grow into adults.
 

On 26 November the Chancellor will deliver a much-anticipated budget.

In her pre-budget video message, the Chancellor has described the pressure on the NHS and the challenge of increasing growth, but among all the uncertainty, one thing is clear – finding the right package of measures will not be easy.

Against this backdrop, it feels timely to be publishing an update to our social value of sport and physical activity work. 

The new and expanded information shows what a positive force community sport and physical activity are.

A great cure with many benefits

The health and wellbeing benefits of sport and physical activity are well rehearsed and the UK Chief Medical Officers have previously described physical activity as the closest thing to a “miracle cure”, but based on the information we’ve published today, even that high praise seems to sell its value short.

Here are a few of the headlines from our latest data:

• Sport and physical activity are good for the nation’s wellbeing and health. In 2023/24, the wellbeing value of sport and physical activity was estimated at £107 billion, and it prevented over 3.3 million cases of non-communicable diseases or chronic health conditions ranging from depression to heart disease. 
• A more active nation means a more productive workforce. In 2023/24, £5.8bn of productivity losses due to morbidity were avoided due to sport and physical activity. 
• A more active nation saves the health care system money. In 2023/24, sport and physical activity saved £8bn in direct healthcare costs through disease prevention and reduced use of health services. 
• Community sport and physical activity is a net contributor to the public finances. In 2023, our sector generated tax revenue of £14bn for central government, compared with £2bn of public sector funding. This means community sport and physical made a net fiscal contribution of £12bn.

Furthermore, we know that sport and physical activity is a significant part of the economy. In fact, the Department for Culture Media and Sport’s 2024 Sport Satellite Account for the UK show that the direct contribution of sport and physical activity the English economy was £47 billion of gross value added and supports one million jobs.

So, from a public policy perspective, what’s not to like?!
 

The value of sport and physical activity is significant and wide-ranging but with the right support it could be even greater.

The information published today also includes our estimate of the social cost of inequality in sport and physical activity, that is the amount of social value we miss out on because some groups of people are less likely to be active than others.  

We estimate this to be £19.6bn a year.

Tackling inequality in sport and physical activity, and realising this value, is at the core of our long-term strategy, Uniting the Movement, so I’d like to end by paraphrasing the Chancellor: “I commend the value of sport and physical activity to the House.”

Imagine you’re missing out on talent, innovation and fresh perspectives, but not because they don’t exist, but because your systems weren’t built with them in mind.

That’s the quiet cost of inaccessibility in the workplace.

But with any challenge comes an opportunity and, in this case, it’s to realise that inclusive organisations perform better because they’re more adaptable, more trusted and more representative of the communities they serve.  

And with nearly one in four people in the UK identifying as disabled, this isn’t a niche issue – it’s a mainstream one.

So, just as the EmployAbility Guide highlights: “Inclusion isn’t just the right thing to do;  it’s a smart business decision.”

Our mission now goes further and we promote sector-wide change by highlighting career pathways for disabled people, supporting inclusive education and recruitment and creating accessible cultures – physically and digitally.

From curiosity to commitment: my journey

As a partially blind person, I was excited – and curious – about training as a fitness instructor through the InstructAbility programme.

In 2014, I became the YMCA Fit’s first visually-impaired Exercise to Music trainee.

That milestone launched a career delivering audio-described dance fitness for blind groups, accessible fitness sessions for diverse audiences across the sector, and corporate energisers and team-building services.

I’m now an Exercise referral specialist and a member of the EmployAbility Strategic Partners Group.  

Why digital accessibility matters

I believe that inclusion must go beyond access to physical spaces and it must include the digital world, too, because we’re living in a digital age and accessibility is vital across the entire journey – from recruitment to training, development and as a constant on daily tasks in the workplace.

Accessible formats for blind and visually impaired people include Word documents and websites built to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), enabling screen-reading software to convert text into speech.

While I’ve had great support from training providers, some newer online platforms introduced unintended barriers, such as being incompatible with screen-reading software.

The good news? These issues are easily addressed through accessibility audits and expert scripting, making the platforms usable again.

You don’t need to scrap your systems but you do need to review them, so start where you are, get an audit, plan for access in your budgets and keep moving forward.

Why this work matters

In the UK, 16.1 million people, that is 24% of the population, are disabled yet only 54.2% of working-age disabled adults are employed, compared to 82% of non-disabled people, causing a 27.9 percentage point gap.

In our own sector, the gap is more acute with just 9% of disabled people saying they’ve had the opportunity to coach or deliver sport and physical activity, compared to 24% of non-disabled people.

At the same time, disabled adults are almost twice as likely to be physically inactive as non-disabled adults (39.5% vs. 20.2%).  

Good work is already happening, will you join in?

I’ve experienced inspiring commitment from training providers like YMCA Fit and dance fitness brands like Clubbercise and SOSA Dance Fitness, who’ve trained and certified instructors with a wide range of disabilities.

Employers using Guide C have already improved our sector through an increased level of confidence among the staff, made recruitment more inclusive and enhanced feedback and onboarding processes.

Let’s connect!

Our free guides are here to support you, your team and your workplace. You don’t need to get it all right immediately, but taking steps forward is what matters.

We also want to say that we’re here for you and since Activity Alliance is currently acting as secretariat for the group, you can contact Dawn Hughes, their strategic partnerships advisor, and/or their workforce lead, Helen Newberry if you’ve got any questions, want to highlight any barriers or give us your feedback.

Let’s have a conversation, swap ideas, compare notes, celebrate your wins, tackle the challenges and keep learning together.
 

The concentrated focus of Black History Month provides an opportunity to gain new perspectives through events, articles and media programming that might otherwise be overlooked.

At its best, this month should stir our curiosity and resolve as we look back at the achievements and struggles of Black people, helping us gain a fuller understanding of Black histories to strengthen our grasp of the present.

This celebration (and the round-the-clock efforts by many through the year) should move us to action, reminding us that we don't have to accept the erasure of some people and communities as normal.

Bristol Stepping Sistas is more than a walking group – it’s my walking group. Mine and that of the amazing women who've walked with me since 2021.

Together we are an award-winning walking group that enables us to reach out to other women in the Bristol area and encourage them to thrive in open spaces through the simple (yet powerful) activity of walking.

At the core, we are a grassroots group of Black women and women of colour who are passionate about walking and who want to share their identity and their lived experience.

We started to apply for funding so the group could carry on as it offers a well-needed support and it was great when Sport England was able to help us.

We regularly organise walks and we aim to cover different distances to keep our activities interesting for everybody, whether you want to stay close to home or you fancy venturing further. 

In any case, our aim is to help motivate women of colour to visit places they would not have ventured to otherwise, including rural areas around Bristol and further afield in the South-West; routes, all of them, that can be of interest for our women beyond the city borders.

Why we do what we do

Historically, women of colour have not always been up for exploring new, unfamiliar spaces where they feel they could be exposed, judged and/or remarked upon.

This has led to the feeling that we have to 'stay within our lanes', but at Bristol Stepping Sistas we want our women to break any limitation and stay out any of those lanes, so we can all thrive in the new experiences that come with that change of scenery.

We want to encourage women to step across these boundaries (physical and non-physical) and push their limits but, at the same time, to do so in the safety and the company of others who may have had similar experiences of discrimination and disadvantage.
 

Ultimately, we want to enable the activity of walking to be fun, uplifting and enriching to the lives of women of colour, regardless of their walking experience.

Because, for us, walking is more than putting a foot in front of the other and we're definitely not here to cover distances within a set time.

We couldn't care less about that!

At its core, the group is about walking but we use it as an excuse and an opportunity to chat, to reflect and to thrive in nature.

We use the enjoyment and appreciation of open spaces and environments to help address issues of mental health, which I can see have been on the increase in the last few years.

More than walking

So when we meet, we walk and talk about ourselves, our cultures, our favourite dishes and ingredients.

We mention recommendations of new places to go on holidays, other groups we may know and love, and we do all of that while enjoying the fresh perspective that only nature can give us.

So, basically, we talk and we walk, and then we walk and we talk some more. It’s brilliant!

There’s been some excellent feedback from the members that mention how Bristol Stepping Sistas has been a positive, life-changing experience for them.

Our typical walking day is always about fun and there are so many smiles and so much laughter coming from our women, plus our sessions also allow us to meet new members in the group.

There has been a lot to learn in the last four years, but organising the walks is super exciting and every time we go out I look forward to seeing our walkers enjoying and embracing the environment and, of course, improving their wellbeing.

At the end of the day we may end up in a cosy country pub for a well-deserved recovery lunch to get some energy back. It really is great!

As well as creating Bristol Stepping Sisters, I have also provided the first aid outdoor training for 24 women from the group, from which I’m happy to say we’ve all passed!

I’ve also provided the walk leader training for six other women from the group.

My dream is that, together, we keep walking and enjoying every step we take, breaking any fear or boundaries that dare stay in our way.