Inclusion training opportunities for 50,000 coaches and professionals
Activity Alliance supports new workforce initiative to retrain thousands of volunteer coaches who have lost their coaching connections and confidence during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ReTrain to ReTain programme aims to provide skills, training, and targeted support for 25,000 volunteer coaches, and a further 25,000 sport and activity professionals.
As part of their Great Coaching Comeback campaign, UK Coaching in partnership with CIMSPA and EMDUK, has launched the new initiative to provide coaches with a route back into coaching. UK Coaching recognises that the recovery of the volunteer coaching workforce is critical to the recovery of the nation following the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Funded by Sport England, the ReTrain to ReTain programme is designed to provide skills, funding, and support to everyone working or volunteering in sport and physical activity in England. There are lots of different ways individuals can benefit from the programme, depending on your role and personal situation. Volunteer coaches living in areas of economic deprivation or who support people from under-represented groups to be physically active, including disabled people, will be prioritised for additional support.
Activity Alliance’s Inclusive Activity Programme is a key component of ReTrain to ReTain’s fully funded support package for volunteer coaches and sports professionals. The national charity is providing free access to the programme’s inclusive activity eLearning module as part of the new initiative. The eLearning module offers a fun and interactive introduction to making physical activity inclusive and accessible for everyone. Through self-led study, individuals will explore and understand the theory of inclusive physical activity, including key inclusion models, barriers to participations, and communication principles.
After completing the eLearning module, individuals will be offered additional training from the Inclusive Activity Programme. Our online classrooms and face-to-face workshops support volunteers, coaches, and sports professionals to apply their new knowledge and skills to their own sessions.
Chloe Studley, Activity Alliance Inclusive Activity Programmes Manager said:
"Activity Alliance is proud to contribute to this unique workforce retention programme and support thousands of talented coaches and sports professionals to get back to doing what they love – supporting people to be physically active.
"The pandemic has hit disabled people the hardest in many ways. Disabled people’s activity levels have declined, and long-standing inequalities have widened further. Programmes like ReTrain to ReTain can help to reverse this and support an inclusive reopening of community sport and leisure provision for everybody in society. With free access to our Inclusive Activity Programme eLearning module, many more coaches and sports professionals will return to their roles with the skills and confidence to provide inclusive opportunities for disabled people."
ReTrain to ReTain is part of an ambitious £5million job retention and support package for sport and physical activity, funded by Sport England through the National Lottery.
To find out more about the programme and available support packages, please visit the ReTrain to ReTain website.
For more information about Inclusive Activity Programme please visit Inclusive Activity Programme page, email programmes@activityalliance.org.uk or call 01509 227753.
