Inclusive sport: The fight to ensure no one is stuck on the sidelines
Marine biologist Yvette Eglinton once dived some of the world’s most beautiful reefs but a bike accident more than a decade ago prevented her from getting back in the water — until now.
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Yvette Eglinton has dived into some of the world’s most beautiful reefs, but a quick dip in the murky waters of West Lakes recently has become the most memorable for the Adelaide marine biologist.
The 40-year-old has been living with a spinal cord injury after a bike accident 10 years ago.
Last month she became the first South Australian to trial an inclusive snorkel event run at West Lakes by Experiencing Marine Sanctuaries through a state government grant.
Floating wheelchairs and a small team of volunteers helped Yvette back into the water.
“It was so good to get back into the water — I just love exploring the underwater world, which I haven’t been able to do since the accident.”
The Hallett Cove mum-of-two and former triathlete spent nearly five months in hospital and rehab before returning to work and sport. She has since taken up wheelchair track racing and para rowing.
“Being an athlete, I just needed to do something that resembled my life before the accident,” she says.
“Sport is so good for your mental health and wellbeing; it really helped me recover. It is so empowering.”
The fight for inclusive sports made headlines in Adelaide six days ago when Disability Recreation & Sports SA was placed into liquidation due to a lack of funding.
Hundreds of athletes with physical disabilities now face an uncertain future without the possibility of local competitions, representative teams and Paralympic pathways.
It highlights society’s “lip service” in championing the need for inclusive sport but failing to support it, Goodwood Saints Football Club president Craig Scott says.
His club is considered a diversity sporting superstar in SA for fielding a football team in the state’s Inclusive League since its inception in 1992, as much as for developing an all-embracing culture from A Grade players right through to the Minis.
Mr Scott says he’d like to see SANFL clubs field at least double the number of inclusive players, with his own club looking to add a second team to the league next year.
To give the inclusive team a greater profile, the club shifted its games to immediately after A Grade matches on Saturday afternoons on home ground.
At the start of each match, the A Grade players form an arch which each and every inclusive team member runs through, and ends with lots of high fives.
“We get a great crowd now which stay back and watch the inclusive team — parents of the junior teams and players wish them well,” Mr Scott says.
“It’s amazing to watch and the kids then grow up around people who are different and it doesn’t become unusual and they know they are all part of the same club, that they’re all on the same team.”
New data from an Inclusive Sport SA study into the attitudes and behaviours of SA sporting clubs reveals much more needs to be done to engage and cater for people living with disabilities.
The study’s survey of 376 members from sporting groups across the state, including netball, football, soccer, cricket and hockey found:
LESS than 30 per cent of local clubs are involved with “inclusion” related activities;
ALMOST 60 per cent believe their club would have no idea where to start actively engaging people with disabilities into their teams and club roles;
43 PER CENT of respondents felt including a person with a disability in their game would bring down the quality of the game;
88 PER CENT wanted additional training for coaches and volunteers to support greater inclusion.
“It is clear that clubs do not know how to cater for people with disabilities, and are keen for additional training in this space to change these figures,” Inclusive Sport SA general manager Katrina Ranford says.
She says while inclusion, in principal, is highly regarded and communicated, when “inclusion” joins “your” team it becomes a different story all together.
“There are a few clubs that are doing inclusion well, but these are too few and far between,” Ms Ranford says.
“If we want inclusion in sport and society to grow, we need to spend a lot of time looking at education and training for coaching staff, administration staff and awareness to the club members, with the aim to shift the perception of people with disabilities participating in mainstream club land from inspirational or odd to everyday, ordinary sporting life.”
The peak body’s CEO, John Cranwell, says inclusion in sport of people of all abilities is critical to the health and wellbeing of an Australian community becoming heavier and more sedentary by the decade.
“Feeling included in mainstream sport should not even be a question that we have to deal with,” Mr Cranwell says.
He says study after study reinforces the positive benefits of sport in community engagement for people at high-risk of isolation — and that includes the elderly, people with mental health issues, people with English as a second language and people living with a disability.
He says current cultural psychology can mean those living with a disability feel unwanted, excluded and sidelined by some sporting clubs.
“As a community we need to move towards thinking of each person as unique and individual and be willing to accept these differences on and off the field.”
Catherine Beinke, who lives with an intellectual disability, says she loves playing sport, watching sport and being a part of it in every way.
The 29-year-old from Hove has been playing inclusive basketball and netball for several years and says she’d be devastated if she could not participate.
Catherine is part of the Contax Netball Club in the C6 Adelaide Metro Netball Division for women and girls living with a disability or integration difficulty. Of the 28 AMND clubs, six have teams in the C6 league.
Catherine says she’d like to see more clubs field teams in the C6 league — giving the 2018 grand final player more competition and others with the chance to play the sport she loves so much.
Her father Paul — coach of Contax’s C6 team — says he’s not surprised by the Inclusive Sport SA study. He says government bodies need to do more to promote the need for and benefit of inclusive sports to the wider public and the sporting industry in general — from grassroots right up to elite sport.
“Sports people with disabilities enrich a club by making it more diverse and grounded — we need to start looking outside of the box to make our sports all embracing.”
Sport, Recreation and Racing Minister Corey Wingard says the state government is looking at ways to make sporting clubs more inclusive through a number of grants, including one to review how grassroots sport can integrate those living with a disability.
“Disabled sports should be included in the same way women’s football, for example, has integrated with local clubs,” Mr Wingard says.
“You should not be excluded from your local club just because there are no programs or leagues attached. “
A State Infrastructure Sports Plan, launched in March, will seek input on how to better support disabled sports, and the first round of consultation on the state’s first Disability Inclusion Plan closed last month.
Inroads are being made in SA, however they are slow considering it was in 1981 that the state government began advocating for inclusion of people with an intellectual disability into community and sports activities.
This year Football Federation South Australia said it will partner with Bedford Group to create a community league for athletes with disabilities, starting with four teams.
Each week, more than 180 people living with an intellectual disability or integration difficulty participate in an inclusive basketball program run by Basketball SA at three metropolitan sites. The peak sporting body is considering setting up a wheelchair program for children aged 5 to 16 later this year.
The South Australian Cricket Association is involved in a number of disability programs including Blind Cricket and Indoor Cricket. SACA has also established a development academy to open access to more players from diversity and inclusion teams, and last year set up an inclusive social cricket league.
This year, SANFL took over the C7 league run by Inclusive Sport SA.
Re-badged the SANFL AMP Inclusive League, there are now five clubs involved. Among the players is Goody Saints midfielder Rhys Baker and his dad Gary says the 25-year-old from Dover Gardens is making his mark.
“He plays the entire game as a midfielder and runs continuously without being rotated,” Gary says.
“He leads by example on the field, and is a strong ballplayer who never shirks a contest. We are incredibly proud of Rhys.”
This month Rhys became a life member of the club after playing 100 inclusive matches and was asked to join the club’s leadership team. He was recently chosen to train with the club’s senior C squad.
“It is a great opportunity and something that I have been working towards for a long time,” says Rhys, an inclusive state team player.
Club support on and off the field, says Rhys, has boosted his self-esteem, taught him leadership skills and encouraged him to grow as a player and a person.
“And I’ve broken down some stereotypes too,” he says. “I think both able-bodied and disabled players can learn from each other.”
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