The vast majority of our members manage a wide range of leisure facilities – from your local swimming pool, gym and sports hall, all the way to your local ice rink and velodrome. Over a third of Community Leisure UK members also manage green spaces, including parks and playgrounds. Community Leisure UK actively promotes the facilitation of leisure activity by charitable trusts and supports its members through projects, guidance and collaboration with partners on their leisure work.
In January 2021, we responded to the consultation of the National Plan for Sport and Recreation Committee on the review of the national plan. Our full response can be viewed here.
In October 2020, we held roundtable discussions with members to discuss the future of public leisure. The insight report created from these discussions were shared with ukactive to inform their future of leisure work. The report can be viewed here.
We are proud to be working with @AspireCharity and @InstructAbility for the release of three #EmployAbilityLeisure Guides to help increase the number of disabled people training and working in the leisure industry.
You can now download these guides at https://bit.ly/37jqqJv
To support you in implementing the guides, Aspire is working with Sport Structures to deliver a free online workshop which will support managers to review and embed the EmployAbility Leisure guidance in their own organisations. The aim of the session is to give individuals working within the sector the confidence and skills to create an inclusive approach within their workplace to give disabled people access to training courses and employment within the sector. More information:https://www.instructability.org.uk/workshop
Community Leisure UK (CLUK) and the Welsh Sports Association (WSA) have formed a Strategic Alliance across areas of shared interest and benefit; one of these areas is safeguarding and a robust DBS checking service for sport & leisure.
As part of the new Strategic Alliance, the WSA is to provide CLUK members with access to its DBS service for sport & leisure, which is run through its trading arm, Vibrant Nation. CLUK members will pay the rate equal to that offered to the WSA members, which currently stands at £4.50 plus VAT, with no set up fee for the online DBS service.
For more information on this service, please visit the WSA website here.
Community Leisure UK is delighted to endorse a new leisure checklist developed by the Ann Craft Trust and the Child Protection in Sport Unit. The Child Protection in Sport Unit and the Ann Craft Trust are the leading experts in safeguarding children and adults. They have designed a checklist with the aim of supporting the leisure industry to meet their safeguarding responsibilities. The resource is primarily for leisure facilities, including independent, single site operators, leisure trusts, local authority facilities and private leisure operators. It could also be adapted to make it relevant to other sectors that provide services to children and adults, such as organisations managing cultural activities and events.
The purpose of the checklist is to provide a framework for facilities to identify the range of safeguards that need to be in place. All children and adults have the right to take part in sport and physical activity safely, free from abuse and neglect. Completing the checklist will help to ensure that facilities are safe spaces for children and adults to take part in sport and physical activity.
Please visit the Ann Craft Trust or the Child Protection in Sport Unit‘s website to access the resource.
Community Leisure UK are proud to have supported Alzheimer’s Society in the development of their Dementia-friendly sport and physical activity guide. The free guide, funded by Sport England and the National Lottery, was created so that anyone working in the sport and physical activity sector can take steps to become more Dementia friendly.
The guide gives an introduction to the scale of the challenge that Dementia poses to society and introduces why it is important to stay active. It also highlights that though this is a guide to become more Dementia friendly, the advice given will create a positive change for people with disabilities and other long-term health conditions as many face the same barriers as people with Dementia.
The guide explains the challenges faced by people with Dementia and goes on in detail on what can be done by sport and physical activity providers to become more Dementia friendly. There are also multiple references to additional resources that one can access.
Importantly, the guide features a wide range of case studies to illustrate the impact of the proposed Dementia friendly changes within sport and physical activity. We are proud to say that many of our members are working towards becoming Dementia friendly and that some are featured within the guide.
For the full guidance, please download a copy from the Alzheimer’s Society website (link opens in a new tab).
