Disabled people set to guide the fitness industry

Aspire, a national spinal injury charity, and The University of Birmingham have teamed up on a research project that is set to produce evidence-based Best Practice Guidance for training and employing disabled people in the fitness industry.

Disabled people are frequently excluded from this industry, but building on the success of the Aspire Leisure Centre which has led the way as an inclusive community leisure facility, the charity's InstructAbility programme was set up to enhance inclusion across the wider sector.

InstructAbility is the only initiative that has focused on disabled people's career progression, and has now deployed over 300 disabled fitness professionals into voluntary and paid positions within hundreds of leisure facilities across the country. InstructAbility has also won numerous awards. The longer-term vision of InstructAbility is to influence the sector to the extent that programmes such as theirs will no longer be necessary.

Funded by Sport England, the collaborative research project will be the first to produce guidance on how best to train and employ disabled people in the fitness industry. To ensure these guidelines are evidence-based, it tracks current InstructAbility students and past graduates through their journeys. It also uniquely investigates the views about disability and the leisure industry held by a wide range of industry stakeholders, including training providers, awarding organisations and employers.

Source: English Federation of Disability Sport