03 Nov Triple Awards for #Brentwood Centre and Staff
Staff members at the Brentwood Centre, Sam Brooker and Lee Patmore won awards at the Aspire Instructability Awards event last week, while the Brentwood Centre was awarded and is now officially recognised as ‘a centre of excellence for inclusivity.’
Sam and Lee were awarded for their work supporting pan-disability including mental health.
The Brentwood Centre is on a mission to become the most diverse and accessible Leisure Centre in the UK.
Brentwood Centre manager, Nicky Smith said: ” It is wonderful to get the opportunity to let people know about our commitment to leading and delivering an inclusive programme including mental health here at the Brentwood Centre. Our inclusive framework will be replicated across the country so a big thank you to Instructability for supporting people with pan-disabilities to further their careers in the leisure industry and also to Sport England for additional funding for Instructability. ”
Please contact centre manager Nicky Smith for more information at [email protected]
During the event it was revealed that Sport England are investing new funding of £380,000 for Instructability
InstructAbility is a project designed by Aspire, the spinal injury charity and delivered in partnership with YMCAfit, to give unemployed, disabled people the training, qualifications and practical experience to gain work in the leisure industry. Over the last four years Sport England has funded a national roll out of the scheme to produce fitness professionals with a vast range of impairments, including wheelchair users, amputees, stroke survivors, deaf and blind people and those with mental health difficulties. Once deployed within the sector they are able to use their unique lived experience of disability to encourage other disabled people to get active.
The National Lottery funding from Sport England will go towards developing a revised delivery model, to embed the InstructAbility programme more effectively within local networks, led by a range of stakeholders including leisure operators and disability organisations.
Aspire will work closely with Sport England to produce an online project management tool. In addition to measuring participation rates they aim to evaluate the impact of the scheme on physical, mental and social well-being of disabled people as instructors as well as activity participants.
