Who is Parasport for?

Introduction

There are many millions of people in the UK with disabilities, around 20% of disabilities are congenital the remainder acquired during life as a result of disease, accident or ageing.

Virtually all of us during our lives will experience some form of disability. The loss of sight or mobility can affect people in dramatically different ways. Many people suffer a sense of loss, even mourning for what they can't now do, but that often fades with time and new opportunities become apparent and every year barriers are removed.

One of the most positive approaches to disability is to realise new challenges and rise to meet them. This is exemplified by the activities of British Paralympians. There are few sports where the British are consistently excellent and regularly come in the top handful of countries in the World at international sporting events. So the performance of the British Paralympic team at the Paralympic Games (winter and summer games held every 4 years in parallel with the Olympics) is all the more special.

The challenge

Sports of whatever standard depends on grass root support. The more players a country can draw upon the better the likely standard of the international team. So sport promotion must begin at the earliest stage possible. Many of us will recall our first sports day, our first weekend game or our first team trial. However, a sports man or woman who happens to be disabled may fall through this grass roots system.

In the UK Government is wedded to the concept of mainstreaming - in fact it is now the case that nearly two thirds of young people with disabilities are placed in a traditional school settings. Much policy setting is now driven towards the need to be inclusive and fair. If activities and services are available to one sector of a community then they should be available to all.

Not many would criticise this goal, however for a young disabled person the opportunities presented may in fact be somewhat reduced by the very inclusivity that mainstreaming presents. A blind long distance runner can only be as good as their sighted guide, a wheelchair basket ball player might not present the fairest opponent to a non-wheel chair user.

The British Paralympic Association (BPA) represents the very pinnacle of sporting achievement for a whole range of disabled athletes. With more and more countries joining the Paralympic movement it is inevitable that the sport will need to improve both the standards of its athletes but also the number of people coming into the sport. This is why the BPA have developed Parasport with the support of Deloitte - to encourage, support, guide and inspire young people into sports that they might otherwise never try. Not everyone will reach the top step of the podium - but everyone can have a personal best - and sport - at whatever level is a joy to compete in and to watch.

The numbers involved

Before the mainstreaming agenda appeared it was possible for organisations like the BPA  to reach their potential competitors via special schools and specialist hospitals. Whilst the latter is still possible the former is now made more difficult.

In the UK in 2006 the Department for Educational Needs and Skills First Released ‘Special Education Needs in England, January 2006’ (SFR 23/2006). This document gives accurate statistics on disabilities in school children in England. Here are some relevant highlights:

• There are just under 8.2 million pupils in school in January 2006 in England;
• 236,700 (2.9% of the total) had statements of Special Educational Needs (SEN);
• Just under two thirds of pupils with a statement of SEN are in mainstream schools with the remaining third in Special Schools;
• There are 1.3 million children with a statement that are not also SEN.

A Statement of SEN will be given for a variety of reasons – only some of which are relevant to Parasport.

So in summary the Parasport project aims to reach (this is just for its school based target audience – there will be others in older age cohorts of course) 109,080 pupils from a pool of 8,200,000 which is 1.3% or roughly one in eighty pupils in school.