Sporting Club Rhinos: Disabled Changing Rooms and Playing for GB

Joan Dunn is secretary at Sporting Club Rhinos, an organisation that provides all sorts of wheelchair sports. Based in Wolverhampton, they coach everything from taster sessions, right the way up to GB level competitions.

Joan uses a wheelchair because of her progressive type 1 diabetes and arthritis. She has two sports-mad kids, who both represented Wales in the 2013 Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup.

Joan was formerly employed as a banking underwriter, but on receiving her son, Josh’s diagnosis of cerebral palsy, she decided to investigate complementary medicine. Joan is now qualified in classical homeopathy, has trained in bio-mechanics, massage, aromatherapy and reflexology, and has a degree in Public Health. Joan manages two of the Rhino wheelchair basketball squads, and is a qualified level 1 wheelchair basketball coach.

Dodgy Disabled Changing Rooms and Representing Paralympics GB

In this interview, Joan talks about the benefits of Paralympic sports for young people, progressing to team GB and being told to use a cupboard as a changing room in her local health centre.

Sporting Club Rhinos – More Than a Club

Sporting Club Rhinos have coached Paralympic sports for young people in Wolverhampton and the surrounding areas for 14 years. Their teams compete in all age groups against clubs from around the UK and Europe.

“Our sports are mainly for people physical disabilities and mobility issues. We also do things like boccia, which is a type of indoor bowls for people with more profound physical disabilities, and pan-disability games, which are sports that everyone can get involved with.

“Our most popular sports are wheelchair basketball, tennis and rugby league.”

One of the Club’s Super League Teams

The club offer its members more than just an opportunity to play sport, says Joan.

“Rhinos is more than just a sports club – it’s a whole support network. We help the kids by providing physiotherapy and counselling, and signpost them towards getting help with benefits or housing applications. We do the lot.”

Get Kids into Sport and Watch them Grow

Joan isn’t the only member of the Dunn household that’s involved with Sporting Club Rhinos. Her Husband, Phil, is chairman, and her two sons, Josh and Jonathan, have played wheelchair sports at the club for several years.

Joan, and the other members of the club, are passionate about getting young kids with disabilities into sport because of what it can do for their confidence.

“Speaking from personal experience, if you have a disability, quite often you can be treated like a second class citizen. You can get ignored when you’re in a wheelchair, and when you’re young it’s really hard when all your fiends are running around and you can’t join in.

“Our aim at Rhinos is to get kids into sport at a young age, because it makes such a difference. You can see them grow in confidence and that becomes mirrored in every other aspect of their lives. Their skills improve, their social lives improve – it’s incredible.”

Joan uses her 19 year old son, Josh, as an example of how sport can help a young person with a disability.

“Josh decided to learn sign language to help with his limited speech, so we’ve been attending weekly classes together. One week I had a fall and couldn’t go, but Josh had the confidence to go on his own. He wouldn’t have been able to do that if it wasn’t for being involved in sport.

“He’s an amazing young man. He passed his driving test first time, he’s studying for a BTEC level two at college at Coleg Cambria, and he is a Paralympic ambassador. He even got to meet the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. He shows people that just because you’re disabled, it doesn’t stop you living your life.”

“Josh has limited speech, due to having vertebral palsy, and quite often he gets treated as though he’s unintelligent. Often people just don’t see the person behind the disability, but what the coaches at Rhinos have done for him is amazing. The way our head coach, Alan Caron, in particular has supported and encouraged him has been incredible.

Is the Paralympic Legacy Falling Short?

Sporting Club Rhinos works with people from junior age groups, right up to highest levels of disabled sport. Countless members of the Paralympics GB team started out at Rhinos, including Jon Hall, Abdi Jama, Jon Pollock, Dan Highcock, Matt Bryne, Kyle Marsh and Mark Fosbrook.

Joan is concerned that while the London 2012 Paralympics increased demand for disabled sports, the necessary facilities aren’t yet available across the UK.

“In general, having the Paralympics in London certainly increased awareness of disabled sports. However, very little has actually been done to move on from that.

“I can’t tell you how many people we’ve had coming into our club in the past three months alone – it’s ridiculous.

“But the facilities people with disabilities need to play sport aren’t always available. Sometimes we have to travel up to 8 hours, just for a forty minute game, because accessible sports facilities are few and far between.”

Told to get changed in a Cupboard under the Stairs

Joan’s feels UK leisure centres are not doing enough for disabled visitors, particularly when it comes to changing rooms.

“Sports centres often don’t have a bespoke changing area, with a grab rail, special shower and so on. When they do, it’s always within the men or women’s changing rooms. So if a person with a disability wants help getting changed, it has to be from someone of the same sex. That can make things really difficult for families, but people don’t seem to realise.”

Joan has experienced all sorts of problems at sports centres over the years.

“Often the grab rails aren’t secure or the room is quite dank. The light in a disabled changing room at a centre near us was broken for over six months and no one bothered to fix it, despite numerous requests.

“The lockers are also often far too high to access from a wheelchair and they’re too narrow to hold all the extra stuff you might need if you’re disabled.

“At one sports centre, we were told the only place they could offer us to get changed was a cupboard under the stairs. Needless to say, we don’t go there anymore.”

Potential Paralympians Prevented from Playing

Joan has seen some talented sportsmen and women give up on playing sport because of inaccessible facilities at health centres.

“In some leisure centres the gym is upstairs and there isn’t a lift. When you’re training to reach the top of your field as a GB athlete you need to get in the gym to train, and that’s just not good enough.”

Sometimes these facilities are so bad they’re downright dangerous, Joan explains.

“I’ve seen loads of talented people drop out of playing sports entirely because of the facilities. One of our players, who had no legs and very limited mobility, sat on a toilet which hadn’t been properly screwed to the floor, and fell off and broke his arm. Not only was he in considerable pain, and discomfort – he was left in a position where he needed constant care.

“It put him off playing sport for good, and that’s probably just one of thousands of cases.”

A Change of Attitude is Needed

Accessibility is a problem across the UK, and it isn’t limited sports centres.

“Our players come from every corner of the country and accessibility is a big issue everywhere. It comes down to a lack of thought and it affects every aspect of a wheelchair user’s life.”

Earlier this year, Joan found herself apologising for the state of public transport for disabled people in UK to the Australian wheelchair rugby league team.

“The wheelchair rugby league world cup was held in Kent in July, and both my sons were selected to play for Wales.

“We were staying in the same hotel as the Australian squad, who decided to go sightseeing in London one day. They researched accessible tube stations beforehand, but when making their way back they were told the station was closed and had to find another one.

“They finally got a train back to Medway where we were staying at about midnight, but the hotel was about three miles away and there were no accessible taxis, so they ended up making their own way back.

“To make matters worse they had a match the next day. It was embarrassing to see international athletes treated like that. I ended up apologising on behalf of the UK government.

“That’s just one example, but it’s like that every day of our lives. It’s an attitude that’s present everywhere.”

Sponsor:

This interview was sponsored by Total Locker Service, experts in supplying accessible lockers and other secure storage solutions for all sorts of needs. They provide top-quality lockers for leisure centres, gyms, schools and offices. Contact the team on 01284 749211 for more details.

Poor Access Prevents People with Disabilities Playing Sport

Bio:

Sue Napper is a founder of the registered charity Disabled Holiday Information.

Sue and her husband Frank started the organisation 12 years ago. After being unable to find information on accessible activities for Frank as a wheelchair user, they decided to share their own experiences online.

Today, Sue, Frank and their dedicated team review accessible attractions and across the UK.

According to charity worker Sue Napper, health and leisure centres aren’t doing enough for people with mobility issues. Here she reveals the most accessible regions of the UK, and how people who were inspired by the Paralympics Games are being put off sport by poor facilities.

Disabled Holiday Information

When it comes to activities for people with disabilities, Sue has years of experience. Over the years, the charity has helped people with easy access needs take part in a range of activities – including some hair-raising sports like paragliding and kite buggying.

“Disabled Holiday Information has been in existence for 12 years. We started off primarily looking at holiday information for people with easy access needs. We now focus on places to go, things to do and things to take part in, from falconry and canoeing to gliding and paragliding.

“Recently a member of our team went to look at wheelchair rugby, which isn’t provided by many leisure facilities. We review anything and everything, even extreme sports like kite buggying in Cornwall.”

What makes Sue’s charity special, she believes, is the fact that every member of her team has first-hand knowledge of accessibility issues.

“What’s unusual about ourselves is that we’re an awareness-led organisation, so our committee, our researchers and our trustees are all comprised of people who have easy-access needs themselves, or have cared for someone with a disability. It’s quite unusual because a lot of the time organisations are manned by people with good accessibility on behalf of people that don’t.”

The Paralympics Legacy

For Sue, being involved in sports is hugely beneficial for everybody – whether you’re able-bodied or not. She wants to see more leisure centres supporting sports for people with disabilities.

“The benefits of playing sport for a person with a disability are exactly the same as they are for anybody else. They get a chance to interact socially and a chance to increase their physical fitness. It’s a sense of achievement so that goals can be obtained. People with disabilities get all the normal things that anybody would feel they would benefit from the sport,” she says.

Much work is still needed to include people with disabilities in health and leisure centres.

“The trouble is that when people go out and do these things it’s not always possible because the facilities at health and leisure centres aren’t accessible.

“If you’re a person with easy access needs and you want to go swimming or use the gym, quite often the lack of facilities prevent you from joining in. A lot of the time, things that are accessible to the rest of your family or to your friends are just not accessible to you.”

Following the Paralympics, Sue and her team were optimistic that sporting activities would be more accessible for everybody. But sadly, says Sue, that often this hasn’t been the case.

“After the Paralympics everything looked fantastic, everybody thought ‘great, it would be wonderful to go out and do this stuff’. The reality for ordinary Joe Bloggs is that there are a huge number of obstacles still in the way.”

What Should Sports Centres Offer?

The team at Disabled Holiday Information visits sports and activities centres around the country, using a checklist of facilities they expect leisure centres to provide for visitors with disabilities.

“We go out to look at these places in teams of two or three. There will always be a wheelchair user, and we try and look at aspects that affect those with visual and other sensory impairments as well. Sometimes someone with cognitive impairments will come along too.

“One of us will have a tick list and they look at what facilities are available and what’s required for people taking part. The list will vary depending on the type of facility, but for a leisure centre it will be a list of all the things someone with easy access needs might require in order to be able to take part in any of the things that are on offer.”

Sue and the other Disabled Holiday Information researchers leave no stone unturned.

“We assess whether attention has been paid to the fact that someone who has a visual impairment might be visiting. For example, one of our team members has a guide dog. She can’t use her local leisure centre on her own because there’s nowhere for her to leave her dog.

“Our list has been compiled by the people with easy access needs themselves, so it’s got all the things they need, from their perspective,” she says.

Small Things Make Big Difference

Changing facilities are one of the biggest areas needing improvement, according to Sue.

“Changing facilities in sports and leisure centres are often segregated. It might be that if there is an easy access changing room there, it’s the wrong end of the building – it’s not where your mates are.

“Another issue is that there may not be somewhere suitable if you want to get changed on your own. Sometimes there’s a presumption that you’ll have someone with you to help, but actually, if you’re a spinal injury sufferer and you have good upper mobility you’ll want to do as much of it on your own as you can.”

Even when the right facilities are in place, a lack of awareness means that they’re not used effectively.

“Sometimes almost everything that’s needed is there, it’s just one small consideration that’s been overlooked. Often it’s very small things, but they can have a massive impact,” says Sue.

“Often in a sport centre you’ll have one designated accessible changing facility. They tend to have quite a lot of space in them because that’s the way they’re designed, but it becomes the storeroom. You can’t actually access it because it’s full of all the mops and the buckets and other equipment. That’s a major issue, it sounds a small trifling one, but it’s not,” she adds.

Changing Rooms are a Problem

With more and more people with disabilities choosing sports as a way to make friends and keep fit, there’s, even more, need for leisure centres to get easy access right. A lack of facilities mean that people with accessibility needs may even stop doing sports altogether.

“There tends to be just one or two disabled changing rooms in most sports centres. Again, there’s a presumption that there’s very few people out there who want to these facilities, but of course, that’s not true. This is potentially an even bigger problem now because of the GP Exercise Referral Programme,” says Sue.

“This is a major project to get people that are older or have easy access needs out and get them, fitter. They can be referred for the 16-week scheme, where they only pay a very small amount towards the fee. Following that, they often get a reduced rate towards the normal fee.

“I think the programme works fairly well in principle, but the trouble is that a lot of people who are referred then find out the facilities aren’t easy to use and they don’t always stay the course.”

Searching High and Low for Suitable Lockers

Often, leisure centres and the like will try to use a one-size-fits-all approach to their facilities. And that causes problems for anyone who doesn’t fit the mould.

“Lockers aren’t suitable because they’re usually a standard size. This means no thought has gone into the fact that somebody with a disability might need more space to store things. You may have far more stuff that requires putting away because of your easy access needs. People have told us they’ve had to use two or three lockers before. There’s just no thought behind it.”

Sue said she hasn’t seen any mid-level lockers that allow for easy wheelchair access.

“Mid-level lockers would be a real help because sometimes the only free lockers might be low down, which wheelchair users can’t access, or high up where they just can’t reach.”

We All Need Easy Access

At some point in our lives accessibility issues will affect everybody – so easy access isn’t just a minority issue, it’s something we should all be pushing for, says Sue.

“Something I really feel strongly about when you’re talking about easy access, is that it actually applies to everyone. It’s from the point in your life where you may be in a buggy as a child, to the other end of your life, where you just may walk with a stick or you may not be able to get about as easily or you may need to sit down a lot. It’s everybody’s life. So making places more accessible is better for everybody.

“It’s the only way to think about it really because if everybody did that, they’d stop seeing it as a minority and start seeing it as a necessary part of everybody’s life.”

UK Leisure Industry needs to think Outside the Box

According to Sue, some areas in the UK are better than others when it comes to accessible leisure facilities. Every sports centre and leisure club in the country should be thinking outside the box on easy access issues.

“Scotland and the South West of England as a rule seem to have better accessibility than other areas.

“We recently went to a big leisure complex in Dumfries called DG One, and they had thought totally outside the box with everything. One of the swimming pools starts off level and lowers as you use it, they’d made sure the Jacuzzi areas were accessible, and they’d even thought about the height of the sockets, hair dryers and shelving.”

For Sue, people’s attitudes towards disabled access are key to improving things.

“They had more than one changing facility and their attitude was generally better – they were expecting people with easy access needs to come and join in.

“Some of the other European countries have much better access than the UK, but I think we’re better than a lot of places. We don’t expect people with disabilities to live in cupboards and never come out, but there’s a long way to go.”

Better Facilities Mean People are More Active

Sue is convinced that more people would become involved in disabled sports if leisure centre facilities were easier to access.

“There’s absolutely no doubt that better facilities in leisure centres and gyms would get more people with easy access needs involved with sport. And there’s more publicity around it at the moment too, with more interest in spinal injuries units, the GP referral scheme and a focus on rehabilitating people from the army who have been injured. That’s why we try to promote activities and places that are accessible.”

Sponsor:

This interview was sponsored by Total Locker Service, experts in supplying lockers and other secure storage solutions for all sorts of needs. They provide an excellent range of accessible lockers for disabled changing rooms in sports and leisure centres and gyms. Contact the team on 01284 749211 for more details.

LIW

Buggy locks