From Learning to Leading: Experiences of Inclusive Practitioners from University to Applied Practice

Introduction: Opportunities for equitable participation in sport and exercise are markedly lacking in the disabled community. One reason may be the lack of formal support and education practitioners receive. The University of Worcester has developed an inclusive pathway to create confident and effective practitioners, but the impact of these individuals is yet to be explored. The purpose of this research was to explore how practitioners were informed by their training at university, and what is required to improve current training for future disability practitioners.

Methods: Ten graduates were interviewed regarding their experiences at university and inclusive career. Date were then subject to narrative analysis.

Results: Though participants lived different stories, there were communalities in their narratives regarding how they created new opportunities for sport and exercise, and the various barriers they encountered trying to do so. For example, relationships with lecturers changed to colleagues as both graduates and their former educators supported each other to create more equitable opportunities for sport and exercise. Regardless of their sport or area of work, participants highlighted ableism as the key reason why disabled people are excluded from sport and exercise with increasing political and structural changes increasing the difficulty to create a long term legacy of equitable participation.

Discussion: Higher Education institutes must ensure they are training future practitioners for the very real, contemporary challenges of creating sport and exercise opportunities in an ableist society, rather than a tokenistic idea of disability sport.

Conclusions: Training confident, informed and driven practitioners can be a catalyst for equitable participation in sport and exercise, but increasingly ableist structures make this task more and more difficult.