Playground to Podium

Playground to Podium is a dedicated initiative designed to identify and nurture disabled young people and disabled adults with the potential to be elite athletes and is a collaboration between Youth Sport Trust, Paralympics GB, UK Sport

The scheme focuses on six sports:

• Athletics

• Boccia

• Football

• Swimming

• Table tennis

• Wheelchair basketball

Playground to Podium offers a framework to enhance existing player pathways and provide increased opportunities to achieve at the top end of performance.

The initial focus is on disabled young people with an additional pathway being designed for all disabled athletes to be given equal opportunities to nurture higher ability.

The scheme should identify at least 15 young disabled people a year per school sport partnership who demonstrate a high ability in generic skills. They are invited to attend the County Athlete Assessment in the Tees Valley, we manage the organisation of this day.

Tees Valley County Athlete Assessment and Development Centre 2010

We have held the second annual County Athlete Assessment Centre for disabled athletes as part of the national initiative Playground to Podium (P2P) on the 8^th and 9^th June 2010. P2P is designed to identify and nurture young disabled people with the potential to be elite athletes and performers.

P2P is a collaboration between Youth Sport Trust, Sport England, Paralympics GB and UK Sport. The scheme targets young disabled people aged between 12 and 18 years that have previously been identified as having talent by their schools. National Governing Body talent scouts from four sports; wheelchair basketball, football, table tennis and athletics tested the young peoples' skills and abilities.

The event this year which was attended by 24 young people was split into two days in order to give the NGB officers more time to work with the young people. The first day was Athletics held at Clairville Stadium. The young people skills were tested in track, field and jumps disciplines.

The second day, held at Teesside University consisted of football, wheelchair basketball and table tennis.

The number of young people selected by the NGBs as having some talent is identified in the following table:-

	Social*	Club**	Fast Track***
Athletics		9
Wheelchair Basketball	4	15	2
Football		12
Table Tennis	1	7
TOTAL	5	43	2

* Identification of a lack of the required potential or ability to be considered for elite performance

within a specific sport(s). These young people will be referred into community sport and will be signposted to opportunities to continue at a recreational level.

** An individual with potential that needs developing in a specific sport.

*** Identification of an individual with the clear ability to be an elite performer in a specific sport.

These young people will be immediately connected into the performance pathway of that sport.

The feedback from the participants was excellent with 100% of the young people agreeing that they enjoyed the day and that they wanted to keep playing sport in and out of school.