Claiming the right to be active

Paul Carter speaks to Stewart Lucas, chief executive of Interactive, formerly the London Sports Forum for Disabled People, to discuss the reasons behind the organisation’s rebrand, and the issues facing disabled people wishing to get involved in sport in London and beyond

“Our job as an organisation is to ensure that those who provide or make policy with regards to physical activity take on the responsibility to include disabled people,” explains Stewart.

It’s this philosophy of inclusion that underpins much of Interactive’s work, and marks a move away from providing services in its former guise as the London Sports Forum for Disabled People.

“We made the decision when we shifted our strategy four or five years ago that, if we carried on providing services, yes, we would carry on supporting a small group of people, but we would never actually change that wider spectrum.

“Using an example of visually impaired children – we were benefiting maybe 30 children, usually the same 30, each summer. And those 30 children really benefited from it, and the parents really appreciated it, but I think the real sea change for us came when we looked at Sport England’s Active People survey in 2006 and for the first time it showed that essentially 75 per cent of disabled people in London don’t do any sport or physical activity.

“That means that there are about 1.2 million disabled people in London who aren’t doing sport. Actually, us helping 30, and in some cases the same 30, how is that really essentially increasing the participation levels of disabled people in London?

“We realised that by providing very good, quality provision, we were actually allowing the mainstream off the hook.”

Stewart explains that there is something of a dichotomy at present in disability sports provision across the country that organisations such as Interactive are working to bridge.

On the one hand, many sport providers are failing to provide disabled people with accessible, inclusive services; while on the other, take-up among the disability community is not large enough to convince providers there is a market.

He says: “There is a real issue in that mainstream sports providers see themselves as just that – mainstream sports providers. They don’t see themselves as a disability provider because they don’t see disabled people as being part of the mainstream. And almost by us going and providing separate activities, we were in many ways almost allowing that to continue.

“For us the concept is all very much about how do we sell being active as a viable lifestyle choice for disabled people? Saying, you have a right to be active. You have a right to ask to be active. We’re very good about shouting about employment, we’re very good about shouting about our rights to jobs, our rights to transport, our rights to culture, but I don’t think we’re as good at shouting about our rights to be active.”

However, Stewart is keen to stress that the situation is already much better than even five or six years ago, and matters are continuing to improve.

So with that in mind, where can disabled people who are interested in getting involved in sport or physical activity, even at a very low-key level, go to for information?

“The best place in London to contact at the moment is us. That’s the first point of call. If it’s outside of London, the best place to contact is the English Federation of Disability Sport and go to their website.

“Or, just go and do activity yourself, ring up your local club. I think that’s almost the other side of it – I would say where we as disabled people have got to take responsibility is by saying ‘I want to be active. I’m not going to sit here and wait for someone to do it unto me, I’m going to go and basically do it myself. I’m going to go to my local club.’

“If you go to your local club and they say ‘oh we can’t provide for you’, talk to us. Talk to EFDS. We’ll either be able to tell you a club that can, or we’ll be able to talk to that club so that they can provide for you. But that local club is not going to see a disabled person as a market until that disabled person is standing there and saying ‘I want to take part’.

“If 200,000 people suddenly rang up their local clubs tomorrow, they’d suddenly sit up and take notice, because suddenly there’s a market there.”

One scheme which has the potential to greatly improve disabled people’s ability to find accessible gyms is the introduction of a new ‘kitemark’ scheme called the Inclusive Fitness Initiative (IFI).

Stewart explains: “It’s an accreditation that gyms and providers can get which says ‘this gym is inclusive’ and that is defined by means of four separate criteria. There’s physical access, there’s equipment, there’s training and then there is outreach and marketing. And they have to pass all four of those.

“It’s also about having the entire staff trained in disability equality. It’s all well and good having your fitness instructor have level 2 training disabled people, but if your receptionist doesn’t understand it, you’re not going to get past the front desk.”

Work by organisations such as Interactive is undoubtedly making great strides in opening up the fields of sport and physical activity to disabled people.

“The absolutely crucial thing for me is that providing sport to disabled people isn’t something charitable”, says Stewart.

“It isn’t a good cause, it isn’t a ‘nice thing to do’, it’s pure and simple, route 101 equality. After all, why should our involvement be seen as having less worth?”

• To find your nearest IFI Mark Accredited Facility, visit inclusivefitness.org