Meeting disabled people's needs
Find out more about how we make a noticeable change so disabled people can access and feel the benefits of taking part in sports and activities.
Embedding inclusive practice
Choice and independence are crucial, yet disabled people tell us in our research that there are not enough opportunities to be active.
We use our sector-leading insight to create resources, programmes, training and events that informs and embeds inclusive practice into organisations at all levels. From strategic decision making to operational delivery.
Growing our knowledge and insight
Our research team focus on driving awareness of the inequalities disabled people face to being active. We are immensely proud of the work we do to shine a light on the challenges that exist within society for disabled people.
Our Annual Disabilty and Activity Survey (ADAS) is the primary source of insight for organisations working to increase disabled people’s activity levels. It complements Sport England’s Active Lives Adult Survey. The results showed that disabled people still face significant barriers when trying to be active in their communities. We’re using this insight to support leaders and organisations to remove these barriers permanently.
On International Day of Disabled People (3 Dec 2024), we released our social value report, revealing the huge societal and economic impact of disabled people being active. Our specific assessment found that for disabled people there are substantial wellbeing benefits in physical activity for before the Chief Medical Officer’s activity guidelines of 150+ minutes per week is met. Equal to a social value of £4,400-£6,200 per person per year, depending on the activity level and duration.
Education and training
Our CIMSPA-accredited Learning Hub continues to grow with more courses added regularly. Our training enables individuals and organisations to be more inclusive for disabled people in sports and activities, and beyond. Meanwhile, the inclusive Education Hub, gives teachers and school staff lots of support to review and improve their inclusive physical education and school sport delivery.
Our expertise and insight in action:
In May we hosted a webinar to share our insight and recommendations on outdoor space and active travel. It was the last in our series of webinars exploring our Annual Survey results in detail. We were joined by experts to discuss inclusive outdoor spaces and what active travel means for disabled people both nationwide and locally.
In August we worked with Intelligent Health to improve accessibility for disabled people and people with long-term health conditions in Beat the Street - a transformational tool to help keep people healthy, created to enable users to embed daily movement in their lives.
Our research and resources were cited in ‘The Power of Sport: A Lifetime of Opportunity’, a collaborative piece of research from the Disability Policy Centre and Soda, supported by Nimbus Disability. The report found just over half of disabled people surveyed were prevented from watching sport due to a lack of accessibility in their venue of choice.
In August 2024, we co-created a research charter with disabled people to lead best practice for conducting inclusive research.
Inequalities within the workforce.
We know volunteering and employment should be as inclusive as participation opportunities. We are developing our insight and expertise in order to support employers improve their recruitment methods and workplace inclusion.
Working with Better Decisions Together we explored the barriers and enablers to disabled people becoming part of the workforce. The report, Research into the workforce gap – Disabled people in the sport and physical activity workforce, showed that disabled people are half as likely to see ‘people like me’ working in sport and physical activity compared to their non-disabled peers. The report showed an urgent need for the sector to address recruitment and retention strategies and provided headline recommendations for employers.
In March 2025 we hosted an online event to unpack these recommendations and introduce our new Include to Improve programme, delivered in partnership with Sport for Confidence. Funded by Sport England, the programme aims to create more opportunities for disabled people to take part, volunteer and work in sports and activities. We will work collaboratively with disabled people and a network of strategic partners to create sustainable, inclusive solution that empower and engage disabled people.
Addressing and challenging perceptions
Disabled people told us they felt there can be a lot of misconceptions and lack of empathy by some members of the non-disabled public towards disabled people. We continue to challenge views and biases, and advocate for meaningful and sustained change sharing disabled people’s diverse voices and experiences as part of our media engagement work at a national level.
Some of our recent media coverage includes appearances on the BBC, national and regional outlets, trade press and features within disability sector titles. Helen Derby, our Strategic Lead for Programmes, featured on BBC East Midlands talking about the Equal Play campaign. Adam Blaze, our CEO, was quoted in the I Paper talking about PE access failing disabled children. Our Get Out Get Active programme was featured in several news bulletins on Hits Radio.
Impact stories
Read how we make a noticeable change so disabled people can access and feel the benefits of taking part in sports and activities.
