In your work, do you deal with people with disabilities who want to exercise? Do you know how you can help them find a suitable sports aid? Or how to properly organize transport to the sport for them? Research shows that many professionals could use additional knowledge and support to properly help athletes with disabilities. The new knowledge platform Knowledge about sports support provides this.
The UN Convention for People with Disabilities has been in force in the Netherlands since 2016. In practice, provinces are encouraged to create more accessibility in the field of sports and exercise. Unfortunately, support for people with disabilities is often still inadequate. (Potential) athletes still experience obstacles to participate such as; no suitable transport options, few financial resources and problems in providing the necessary sports aids.
Making it easier step by step
In these three areas – resources, transport and financial arrangements – the new knowledge platform helps professionals to increase their knowledge. Vanessa Habets, project leader at Special Heroes: “For athletes with disabilities themselves, there are already platforms – such as Uniek Sporten – with a lot of information. We now also bundle all relevant information for policymakers and executive professionals in the sports and exercise sector.”
The platform presents the knowledge in the form of a ‘customer journey’; the process that a potential athlete with a disability goes through. Vanessa: “The athlete’s final destination is structural sports. But it starts with orientation or a trial training, trying out a tool, or literally; come to the club. We guide professionals step by step into what the athlete is encountering – and with which solutions you can support him or her.”
Lack of information and tools
Mike Wigink understands better than anyone the need for better services and information to athletes with disabilities. Mike is a regional consultant for adapted sports for the Zwolle region and seconded as a neighborhood sports coach in his hometown of Raalte. In 2018 he had an accident and has been using a wheelchair ever since. Mike: “During my rehabilitation period we sometimes played a recreational game of table tennis, but actually exercising again was still a long way off. However, when I finished rehabilitation, I received no information or tools about what I could do to exercise again. At the time, I didn’t have this job yet and had no idea where to go or how it all worked. More information about this from, for example, the rehabilitation institution or municipality would have been very valuable.”
Search for a suitable sports aid
Why does the platform offer knowledge about tools, transport and finance? “Athletes experience the most obstacles in those areas,” says Vanessa. “Sports aids are extremely personal. Sometimes they are literally attached to a person. A well-fitting aid is usually tailor-made and therefore expensive by definition.” Research in 2019 showed that almost all municipalities offer the option of applying for a resource under the Wmo. But there is often no fixed point of contact, permanent supplier, or the opportunity to try out sports aids. There is also often no coordination between the Wmo consultant and the sports desk or the neighborhood sports coach.
Mike also found it difficult to find his way in the Wmo. “When I ended up in a wheelchair, I wanted a stair lift, after all my bathroom was upstairs. However, the municipality can only grant such an aid if you have a definitive rehabilitation diagnosis. But my rehabilitation took four years. As an alternative, I was allowed to take a shower in a senior center once a week by taxi. I thought that was inhumane. Now – years later – I speak ‘the language of the Wmo’ better. When I needed a sports wheelchair, I helped the municipality by comparing quotes myself. My bruises from a chair that did not fit well also spoke volumes.”
The problem of transport poverty
Another major obstacle for athletes with disabilities is transportation to and from training and competitions. Mike: “You cannot always rely on the punctuality of transport. Sometimes they are way too late, which means you miss a training session.” Vanessa: “The distances for athletes with disabilities are often much greater, because not every municipality has adapted sports offerings.
Vanessa: “Many professionals simply do not know how exactly transport for athletes with disabilities is organized. For example, every municipality has Wmo transport for regional journeys, while the national Sports Transport Facility offers a solution for supra-regional journeys. The knowledge platform gives professionals an overview of transport facilities and their rules.”
Financial arrangements in one place
The third section of the knowledge platform concerns financial support schemes for matters other than aids and transport. “Contribution and attributes,” Vanessa explains. “Funds such as the Adult Fund and Youth Fund Sports & Culture do a lot and municipalities also have their own schemes. But it’s quite a mess. Especially if you work regionally, you will have to deal with different municipalities that arrange everything differently.”
The platform tries to bundle all financial arrangements – local and national – in one place and this is still being extensively supplemented. This way you know better which schemes you can use for your residents or clients.
Dependency relationship between resident and social domain
In any case, Mike experiences a power relationship between the resident with a disability and the social domain. “You are in a relationship of dependency, so you ‘please’ because you are happy with everything you get. I have decided to commit myself to better identifying issues for other residents with disabilities. Among other things, I joined the municipal Advisory Council, where I spoke to all kinds of involved professionals. And the funny thing is, they often don’t recognize that imbalance of power. Fortunately, something I haven’t lost is my voice. I would like to use that and sharing knowledge and experience is often enough. This is now also possible via this knowledge platform.”
Creating an oil slick
Vanessa: “What we absolutely don’t want is for someone who is enthusiastic about taking up sports to drop out because of the ‘from pillar to post’ feeling. That is often the experience of athletes. However, you cannot change policies in the blink of an eye, which is why there is now this very concrete website that also provides good referrals. In addition, we organize provincial knowledge meetings and each province has a knowledge holder, so that professionals can also contact their regional network with questions. In this way we hope to create an oil slick.”
After his accident, Mike was told that there was a chance that he would never live, work or exercise independently again. Now he does all that and this year he even became Dutch para-badminton champion. “The first time I sat in a sports wheelchair, I cried with emotion. I could move again, I had speed again. At first I had no control over the chair, but I soon noticed that exercising made me fitter, stronger in my head and regaining self-confidence about my body. Sports makes you grow as a person.”
Cooperation
Knowledge about sports support was developed by the Sports & Exercise Knowledge Center, the Special Heroes Netherlands Foundation and Gehandicaptensport Nederland, on behalf of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS).
This article appeared – in a modified form – in the magazine SPORT Board and Management (October 2024).
