Richard Luscombe As part of the EFL Week of Action 2022, we look at the wonderful progress made by Mencap’s All Move participant Keira. From an extremely shy girl with no interest in sport, to a confident and excited star participant.
Keira is an 11-year-old girl with autism who attends the purpose-built, Ofted Outstanding Brook Green Centre for Learning in Plymouth.
Before Keira started her journey with the Trust, she was extremely quiet and shy, with very little interest or engagement in sport. Staff at her school noted that she was very enclosed, with low confidence and low self-esteem, particularly in her sporting ability. As sessions began, she would often shy away and struggled to interact with her classmates, participants, and staff.
Keira began attending Mencap’s All Move sessions at her school in November 2021. The programme gives children aged 11 to 16 with a learning disability the opportunity to experience sports and physical activities that they normally might not have access to.
At the very first few All Move sessions Keira would be content sitting on a bench and watching others. As Keira’s confidence grew, she began to actively take part in activities like basketball, football, tennis, volleyball, tag rugby and team-building exercises.
Keira’s transformation has been wonderful to see, from the disinterested and shy girl from the early sessions Keira began to participate regularly, even becoming excited about the sessions.
Her progress since November has made everyone at the Trust and Mencap extremely proud, but no one is as proud as Keira herself. After every session, Keira can’t wait to tell her mum what she has achieved and how proud she is of her own journey.
Keira has found pleasure in sport and being active and is developing into a confident and happy participant. Keira’s school has noticed her progress, that she has opened up, improved resilience and asks more questions during sessions as she becomes more engaged with the activities. Keira is also able to socialise with classmates more easily, with a particular improvement seen when interacting with the male participants.
Keira even attended her first Argyle game this year in the Sky Bet League One fixture against AFC Wimbledon at Home Park, with tickets we gifted to her and seven other classmates and staff. We are delighted to report that she loved every minute!
Argyle Community Trust Inclusion Officer Alice Young adds: “We are delighted to be the delivery partner in Plymouth & Devon for the All Move project. We have a long and proud history of delivering disability sessions for our communities and we are proud to have partnered with the wonderful team at Mencap to give children with a learning disability opportunities to experience activities they may not normally have access to.
We are delighted with Keira’s journey since she started sessions with us in November and we look forward to seeing her, and other participants, progress as a result of the programme.”
Chris Ballett, Project Manager for All Move, adds: “We’re really pleased to be working with the Argyle Community Trust on the All Move programme, part of Mencap’s wider work across England and Wales. Since launching at the start of the 2019/20 academic year, over 1,400 young people in schools and other youth settings have accumulated more than 21,000 hours of a variety of sport and physical activity. Working in partnership with a fantastic organisation like Argyle has helped increase the quantity and quality of delivery and it’s great to see the incredible impact the programme is having in Plymouth.”
Argyle Community Trust has supported over 70 young people across three schools in Plymouth since beginning the project two years ago. The impact of the programme has seen our young people improve confidence, become more physically active and engage in a range of sports and team building activities they wouldn’t normally have access to. We look forward to working with schools for many years to come and remove barriers to participation.
As part of the EFL Week of Action, we were delighted to be welcoming Keira, and 30 participants of the Mencap All Move programme from Brook Green Centre for Learning, and Mill Ford School, to Home Park for a stadium tour and to watch the first team train at Harpers Park! The group met their idols after the training session and they posed for photos with the group.
Find out more about the All Move project on the Mencap All Move website.
