In a mini symposium, led by Peter Downs – Founding Director of The Inclusion Club, about 35 attendees were listening and participating online. The findings of the focus group study on the meaning of inclusion in practice due to children with a disability themselves, their parents and sport professionals in Finland, Lithuania, Portugal and the Netherlands were presented.

Out of the data seven main themes on the meaning of inclusion in sport in practice were identified. For all three stakeholder groups (children, parents and professionals) inclusion in sport is about having a choice regarding sport, the sense of belonging to a group or team, having the same rights as others and feeling equal and that everyone can participate in sport in their own way. Parents and professionals stated that people have to acknowledge that everyone is unique, with or without a disability, and that inclusion is an ongoing process. Professionals added that the terminology regarding sport for people with a disability can be challenging and that it seems that there is no broad consensus in the field about the meaning of inclusion in sport.

After the SEDY2 presentation Maxine de Jonge from the Mulier Institute presented about the meaning of inclusion in sport according to various stakeholder groups in the Netherlands, followed by Sabine Radtke from Paderborn University from a the perspective of elite athletes and coaches. In a lively discussion after the session Catherine Carty, UNESCO chair, shed her light on the meaning of inclusion from the UNESCO perspective.

In this Sway we will update you on the current status of the project.

Teacher-researcher of Inholland University of Applied Sciences and project member of the Sport Empowers Disabled Youth 2 (SEDY2) project Afke Kerkstra tells about the success of the PAPAI intervention in the Netherlands.

Read the article (in Dutch) here. 

In this Sway we will update you on the current state of the project.

In a session with two other European funded projects about hundred attendees were listening and participating online. We talked about a rights-based approach to the inclusion of people with a disability in sport. This covers the spectrum of opportunities for people with disabilities: inclusion within mainstream settings as well as inclusion within disability-specific opportunities. And all of this in accordance with their individual preferences, wishes and choices.

During the interactive session input about the main question ‘What does inclusion in sport mean in practice?’ was collected from the participants resulting in a word cloud with keywords.

In a lively round table discussion after the session we talked about the current situation for people with dissability to keep them active online and how to listen to the voice of people with a dissability on what they want for physical activity.

You can take a look at the recording of the presentation via this link (Afke starts at 1:18:50). We are looking forward to present the full results during the online ISAPA conference in June 2021.

In this sway we will update you on the current state of the project.