AMS 

To fund development of the Walking Football programme.

to contribute towards purchasing a lawnmower and a line marker.

We want to run fitness and team activities, modelled on football, for people with learning disabilities.

WHAT WE WILL BE DOING WITH THIS PROJECT. A M Special Needs – This project will extend our current delivery on this theme of providing health and fitness activities for the learning disabled and ....more

WHAT WE WILL BE DOING WITH THIS PROJECT. A M Special Needs – This project will extend our current delivery on this theme of providing health and fitness activities for the learning disabled and those with other disabilities. Our current delivery for those with special needs has been focussed on delivery to children in high schools. This project will support youths and adults beyond school age, recognising that this group has the same health need as any other but with different characteristics and challenges. Beyond school age the education and welfare system has no responsibility to help this group with health and fitness activities The project will focus on features to stimulate learning disabled and other disabled participants who need: • The benefits of healthy exercise, along with; • The attendant social interaction of working in a group • Additional motivation and content to develop their involvement. The project will serve a disabled group that generally does not have the capacity to understand the principles of sport and competition or rules of play and behaviour, but physically each participant requires healthy exercise as much as any person. The project will also help carers, usually family members parents and siblings who also provide a caring role and have most often exhausted their own efforts to generate fresh and successful challenges for the individuals they care for. For both the disabled group and the carers the project intends to inspire methods of maintaining their health, both with our group activities and in inspiring their own efforts and engagement at family level in-between sessions, exploring practical activities relevant to individual's capabilities. We will also work with organisations who are already serving this client group but not delivering our form of intervention i.e. to develop healthy exercise, team activities and the social interaction that follows with participation in this form of group activity. REFORM ISSUES An undoubtedly unintentional spin-off of the reform of public service has been that priority in the reform of creating person-centred-planning which has resulted in literally almost eliminating but certainly minimising the social interaction that was previously derived from group work. The practice and resources, at least in our nearby day centres, is now dominated by service to individuals, moving individuals who previously gathered in day centres and were supported in groups for example, out into the community with "individually tailored" services. While naturally laudable as an additional feature of support it has suppressed the values of social and group interaction. A product of that policy is that our local day centres have disposed of transport for groups (e.g. minibuses which were a simple practical tool to support group/social interaction) in favour of cars providing personal and individual transport. This practice is to respond to the drive to respond to the perceived needs of the individual While our members have very definite views about how that is working out when they get feedback that disabled people end up in shops and supermarket café's, our assumption is that simply the staff involved have no other creative or valuable alternatives in their portfolio. This project intends to provide one which also services highly desirable benefits for the participants. DELIVERY AND WHERE. This project will run taster sessions in physical fitness exercises (intending to lead to and provide for ongoing engagement) but in a group environment, creating health exercise and stimulating interaction. The project will work with organisations and their clients serving the large number of learning disabled who gather in Cupar where we know that the organised services mostly do not include team activity as a focus and the organisations serve their clients individually. We will use the resources already established for our Seniors walking football i.e Duffus Park and pavilion where we lease the pavilion and reserved park area and in inclement weather, readily available local sports / halls. This funding will therefore support the additional hours for our staff in this project with a small budget requirement for the additional equipment for the project. WHY. The education system has a responsibility to provide physical education for disabled schoolchildren and our current service to the disabled is with that age group. But despite there being an overwhelming acknowledgement that health, fitness and social interaction are necessary but lacking in those beyond school age, the public care system has no remit to service those acknowledged needs. We believe that it is primarily because staff and even voluntary organisations serving his group do not have the skills to take on "physical education". This project will provide taster sessions to help our peer organisations assess the practicalities and benefits of providing this service while providing benefit to the participants.

Walking Football - For more than just nostalgia and old players

The Staff Costs of the 'Lateral Thinking' Children's Physical Activity Project

The group will use the funding to develop community facilities to deliver health and fitness activities in the local area.

towards the football based fitness sessions for people with learning disabilities

This project will allow the group to produce a business plan and develop a website.