“While many priorities beg for attention in disability, there is a case for more focused attention to participation in community based sport and recreation that often runs dead last in a marathon against elite sport,” writes CRAIG WALLACE.

CityNews writer and emeritus ACT health minister Michael Moore recently made a compelling case that how well the current Assembly Inquiry into barriers and opportunities for participation in community sports in the ACT, and then the government, deals with powerchair football will be a litmus test to determine success in breaking down barriers to sport

Indeed. And we say that investment in community-based sport and recreation for people with disability should be elevated to match the resources directed toward employment services and elite sport programs and it’s also a litmus test for our rehabilitation and health programs. 

In our submission, endorsed by the ACT Council of Social Service, ACT Down Syndrome and Intellectual Disability and the Health Care Consumers Association, we call for more investment in mainstream and disability specific programs, infrastructure and opportunities at the grassroots level as well as a focus on genuine inclusion for children and young people through local sport. 

Along the way we note that the submission by Capital Region Powerchair Football is very well made and supports more investment on team sports including coaching and venues. 

Beyond that we also see barriers across community sport that includes rundown facilities, access barriers to grounds and venues, underfunded programs, challenges purchasing equipment, transport costs and a lack of focus on including kids and young people in mainstream sport with the benefits this brings. 

While there are many priorities begging for attention in disability, including justice, education and health care not to mention the cuts to NDIS, there is a case for more focused attention to participation in community based sport and recreation that often runs dead last in a marathon against elite sport or money funnelled into services designed to direct people with disability in employment. 

Instead, there is a case to be made that investment in community-based sport and recreation for people with disability should be elevated to match the resources currently directed towards getting people who have a disability into a job or mounting a podium at the Paralympics. 

For people with disability, sport can be a path out of social isolation and loneliness, a tool to build skill development and confidence and a boost to physical or mental health and wellbeing.

Sport can even be a stepping stone toward community participation including volunteering and employment. There is some evidence – this time from the veterans community in the US – that participation in adaptive sports is a predictive indicator of gaining and retaining employment for people with disabilities. 

Accessible sport infrastructure can also serve other valuable community purposes and create opportunities for people to gather. Sport isn’t everyone’s passion, but it is important. 

But how to sustain it while we do the other things? Well, none of us have much cause to look to the US for example these days, but one specific opportunity for adaptive sports may be to make it someone’s job and harness rehabilitation settings to foster and grow adaptive sport programs.

Some rehabilitation hospitals in the US have built active adaptive sports programs and sponsor thriving sports teams which serve their patients and are also available to outpatients and members of the local community. 

For instance, The TIRR Memorial Hermann Adapted Sports and Recreation program has established a Junior Wheelchair Basketball, an Adult Wheelchair Rugby Team and a softball team. Other rehabilitation hospitals such as The Mary Free Bed Wheelchair and Adaptive Sports program and The RHI Adaptive Sports Program provide a myriad of sports including Wheelchair Basketball, Adaptive Yoga, Adaptive Golf, Boxing and even Waterskiing! 

Large rehabilitation hospitals in the UK such as Stoke Mandeville have sponsored adaptive sports for decades. 

This hasn’t happened by accident and it’s not purely an act of kindness either. These rehabilitation settings, albeit some with the benefit of private funds and user pay healthcare, see the fitness and wellness of people with disability as part of a sustained recovery mission that enables them to move beyond simply shuffling patients and ex-patients between acute settings, rehabilitation and then home (and often back again). 

The TIRR people describe the value of adaptive sport as “bridging the gap from rehabilitation facility to community involvement by aggressively and purposefully reducing time between being a patient … and re-entering community physical activity”. 

By contrast it’s a level of foresight that’s hard to imagine in a Canberra health system that often seems stuck in a narrow groove of crisis and disruption – overdue repair and replacement of disintegrating buildings, culture inquiries and resignations of orthopaedic surgeons and a seemingly futile quest to clear an ever growing “bed block”. Who on earth has time for adaptive sport?

Not surprising then, when I last visited a few weeks ago, the University of Canberra Rehabilitation Hospital offered a room with some jigsaw puzzles and board games as the extent of its competitive sport offer. 

As much as I love working the brain with a good game of Scrabble, it’s a long way from getting the blood pumping through a spot of wheelchair rugby or water-skiing. 

Like so much in our health system and the story of Canberra’s municipal and service infrastructure we can surely imagine more, aim higher and do a bit better. 

Craig Wallace is head of policy for Advocacy for Inclusion