Blackfriars Day Centre get sporty

Closing the Gap and Blackfriars Day Centre formed a partnership back in April 2007. The main part of this partnership involved Closing the Gap delivering an inclusive regular sports session to the clients at the day centre.

A variety of sports were conducted with the clients including golf, hockey, bowls, cricket, skittles, dodge ball and volleyball. After the initial 10 week taster sessions, the clients and staff at the day centre were very keen on making this session sustainable. 

Two members of staff and two clients were trained in the Sports Leaders UK level 2 award in Sports Leadership. The trained members of staff and clients are now running the sessions and have even introduced a few new games that the clients enjoy including rounders, hand ball and bench ball.

In order to make the session totally sustainable, Blackfriars Day Centre needed to have access to their own equipment. Closing the Gap applied for funding from two different sources; the Vodafone fund and Sport Across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent's ACCESS across Staffordshire fund. Blackfriars Day Centre was awarded £2,240 and £500 respectively from the two funds. This has paid for two years worth of sports hall hire at the Wallace Centre and a lot of specialist disability sports equipment including kwik cricket, floor lacrosse, wheelchair football, rounders, foam balls, target mats, curling, foam javelins, hockey and boccia. This equipment is being left at the Wallace Centre and is now available for other organisations and schools who work with people with a disability.

For further details on the equipment contact either Dave from Closing the Gap on (01782) 235001 or Rob from the Wallace Centre on (01782)233555.