Attitudinal Barriers
These may include:
A person within the Welsh GB thinking that a disabled person cannot play/participate in your sport at any level.
Not welcoming a disabled person onto your Board of Directors because "we have never had anyone who is disabled on the Board before ...", or because "well ... we dont have any disabled members so why have a disabled Board member?"
The membership officer says to a person who rings up to ask about getting involved with your sport as a disabled person, that they couldnt possibly play your sport.
A disabled person wants to access one of your NGB level 1 coach education workshops, you are not sure how you will be able to assess them delivering so you tell them it isnt really aimed at them.
The Coach Education Officer refuses to include any disability-related content into the coach education workshops, because they are already long enough and adding any more in will make them longer and therefore more expensive.
Often attitudinal barriers arise as a consequence of a lack of appropriate and accurate information. The person presenting the attitudinal barrier often only has partial information, and applies that information in an inappropriate way, or based on other experiences they have had.
Possible solutions to attitudinal barriers:
There are a range of Disability Inclusion/Disability Equity workshops available across Wales which are aimed at encoraging people to consider their attitudes, and positively challenge their opinions and perceptions about disabled people and disability sport. FDSW offer a suite of workshops which are aimed at specific audiences working within the physical activity, sport and leisure sectors, and therefore the information and activities included in them are role specific. See UK DIT for further information.
Make people within your NGB aware of the opportunities provided within your sport for disabled people, either explicitly by sharing this information in staff meetings, or implicitly through the inclusion of images of disabled people playing your sport, and stories about events and competitions on your website. FDSW offer NGB support for inclusive practice through the insport NGB programme.
There may be specific reasons why there are no disabled people taking part in your sport, and that may not because they arent interested, it could be that barriers exist which are preventing them, just because there are no (apparent) disabled participants doesnt mean that the GB shouldnt have a disabled board member. S/He should be elected because of his/her skills, but it should also be considered that s/he may also bring with them another level of knowledge about recruiting disabled people into your sport.
First point of contact for anyone new ringing in to your GB is really important, and can mean the difference between another happy participant (or potential medal winner) and a disgruntled sport enthusiast who tells other people not to get in touch because the staff are rude and unhelpful. Ensure all GB staff are positive, and if they dont know something, not to make judgements and guess, but offer to ring the person back with information when they get it. This isnt specific good practice to disability sport and disabled people, but will keep everyone happy and involved.
Many disabled people want to be involved in sport as a coach or volunteer, and they dont necessarily just want to coach the disability sport or disabled people. If as a disabled person they access your Coach Education (unless the workshop is explicitly aimed at coaching disabled participants) then they will be able to coach anyone who might come along to the session. The GB will need to look at the assessment criteria and consider ways in which a disabled person could demonstrate the skills, knowledge and competencies required by the workshop. Contact FDSW and we will support your Welsh GB in doing this.
It may be that your GB qualifications/awards are at capacity, and with a finite resource of coaches and volunteers making qualifications/awards more time consumming is not an option. However, it isnt adding more to the qualifications/awards that makes the workshop inclusive, it is the way in which the existing content is delivered, and how participants are challenged to think. Including case studies which represent disabled people, challenging participants to consider how they would communicate with someone with a specific impairment, up-skilling the tutor trainer to use examples of your disability sport within the workshop will encourage participants to consider disabled people as potential players/athletes as well. One of the biggest challenges getting good coaches involved with disability sport is that they think they arent qualified because they have never done anything on, or heard any mention of disability sport within their qualifications/awards. Contact FDSW for further support to do this.
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