Lincolnshire County Council has been awarded a Together Fund Grant of £4,247 to allow more children in Lincolnshire to access inclusive physical activity opportunities as part of the Holiday Activities and Food Programme (HAF).

The Creating Physical Activities Pilot project will include delivery of a bespoke training session aimed at non-sport providers to support them to successfully run fun and inclusive physical activity sessions for children attending their settings. Suitable activity equipment to support the inclusive sessions will also be provided by the funding.

The Holiday Activities and Food Programme (HAF) is available for free for children and young people who are eligible for benefit-related free school meals. The programme includes access to physical activity, enrichment activities, provision of healthy food and food and nutrition education to promote healthy lifestyles. HAF reduces social isolation for our most vulnerable children and their families. Some providers are sports and coaching agencies that deliver physical activity and sport for more than the required 60 minutes and are confident in delivering to attendees with disabilities. Others are non sport providers, and many of these lack the experience of running fun, inclusive physical activity sessions. The children booking onto these non sport sessions often don't enjoy traditional sport. These providers will benefit from the bespoke training, giving them the knowledge and skills to successfully run quality physical activity sessions, with a focus on fun and inclusion that all children attending can enjoy. Providers will also have access to online UK Coaching sessions and will have to complete several prescribed sessions.

The Local Authority HAF team will also attend the course and will be working with members of the Active Lincolnshire team to produce a quality framework and further training on what a good inclusive session looks like, working with Activity Alliance (The national charity for disabled people in sport and activity) to share best practice.

The Together Fund is being distributed in Lincolnshire by Active Lincolnshire on behalf of Sport England. The fund exists to help to reduce the negative impact of coronavirus and support community groups and clubs working with our target audiences, whose activity levels have been most affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, to grow and enable more people to be more active.

Find out more about the Together Fund and other successful programmes Active Lincolnshire have distributed funding to here.