A Guide to Inclusion

Each guide in this series introduces the pillar that the guide covers, explaining the importance to participants, coaches, and coaching practice through key messages, practical tips, videos, downloads and templates. Take the next step and consider how you can apply the principles from the inclusion pillar to improve your coaching and your participants’ experiences.

In this guide:

• Introduction to inclusion. Understand what is meant by inclusion and why it is important.
• Creating an inclusive environment: Learn how to create an inclusive environment.
• Building rapport with participants: consider how and why you can better connect with your participants.
• Key skills and qualities for inclusive delivery: explore what participants want from an inclusive deliverer and how you can achieve this.
• Creating and delivering an inclusive coaching programme: learn practical tools and approaches to delivering inclusive sessions.

Why inclusion is important in your coaching

It is crucial that inclusion is embedded within your coaching practice from planning through to delivery and post-session reflections. Being inclusive not only ensures you comply with legal requirements but also makes it more likely that participants will:

• enjoy taking part
• keep coming back
• tell others about the sessions.

As a result, you will:

• attract more participants and volunteers
• be more able to sustain your activities
• have a wider range of ideas and experiences you can build upon
• further diversify your participants and coaching workforce.

People want to take part in physical activity and sport for many of the same reasons and motivations.

This includes:

• keeping fit and healthy
• promoting better well-being 
• fun and enjoyment
• social benefits and mixing with friends 
• improving their ability to complete everyday tasks
• skill development or competition.

There may also be personal and specific reasons why an individual wants to take part, such as to manage a long-term health condition or to progress their sporting performance along a talent pathway.

The common reasons for participation apply regardless of disability, gender, race, or other protected characteristics. Therefore, to deliver inclusively your sessions should provide an environment where everyone can enjoy being active together.

Case study: Get Out Get Active promotes activity sessions in Northern Ireland:

What is inclusion?

During the Covid-19 pandemic and the enforced isolation, many coaches and organisations had to find new and creative ways to remain connected to their participants and deliver their sessions.

Wayne, a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) coach in Wales, adapted his sessions to ensure they were inclusive for all. Meg, a participant in the sessions, highlights what it feels like to be included and valued.

Equality, Equity and Inclusion: what do they mean?

You may hear the terms equality, equity, and inclusion used interchangeably. However, they each mean something different.

Due to the Equality Act, legally you cannot turn someone away from your coaching session because of a protected characteristic, such as their impairment or their gender. You must consider any reasonable adjustments that you can make to include the person. 

Reasonable adjustments are positive changes you should make to your sessions to ensure an individual is not disadvantaged compared to other participants. Any changes should be reasonable and proportionate, placing the person and their needs at the centre of your planning, thinking, and delivery.

Adjustments may include:

• changes to physical features such as accessible ramps to the facility
• the provision of alternative formats, such as an audio file as well as written information
• involving a supporter, such as a carer, in the sessions or allowing them to travel with the team. 

When a new person attends your session, how do you adapt it to help them succeed?

Do you:

• give them a buddy?
• adapt or modify an activity?
• set personal goals and targets with the individual?
• provide them with appropriate ‘challenge’ to their ability and experience?
• differentiate the session outcome for someone who is finding the activity too demanding?

These are all adjustments that place the person and their needs at the centre of your planning, thinking, and coaching practice.

The Ten Principles developed by the Activity Alliance will help you create an open, inclusive, and welcoming environment. Initially created through research with disabled people, they can be applied to support you to create and maintain an inclusive activity environment for all individuals.

The Ten Principles

Applying the Ten Principles will help you to reach, engage and sustain a much broader group of participants. By understanding people’s motivations to be active you can fulfill needs within the local community. The Ten Principles can be applied by an individual coach, club, organisation, or local authority to provide an inclusive environment for participants.

The Ten Principles provide a holistic approach to coaching, and can be split into three sections to help deliver an inclusive coaching environment:

• Drive awareness.
• Engage the audience.
• Offer support and reassurance.

Download the top tips on making your sessions and activities more accessible and appealing.

Inclusive coaching

It is important to keep in mind that your unconscious bias may impact your ability to take a person-centred approach and therefore how inclusive you are. This may look like automatically grouping individuals of a similar background, giving men leadership roles, or holding committee meetings in a pub.

Look at the handy tips for inclusive delivery and coaching. The framework identifies different things you can apply to your sessions to have the greatest impact, considering everything from how you set up an activity, to the conversations you have and your individual approach.

A person-centred approach

A person-centred approach places the individual at the centre of your planning and practice, ensuring that your sessions are inclusive for everyone. This is where you take the time to understand your participants and adapt your coaching approach and practice.

Key to this is:

• acknowledging and treating all participants as individuals
• connecting with each person
• understanding their individual needs, values and motivations
• thinking holistically and considering the person's psychological, emotional, social, physical, and technical needs
• designing and delivering your sessions to meet their needs rather than yours
• meeting the individual where they are at for every session
• recognising that development and progression are non-linear
• being flexible and supporting individuals within your sessions to achieve success.

Remember: whilst some reasons for taking part in sessions will be the same for all participants, others will be specific to the individual and often they change over time.

Women in Sport’s research highlighted that every woman’s relationship with physical activity is unique and highly complex based on their life experiences and situation. Each woman or girl has personal values and beliefs that influence their decision-making and priorities within their lives. These values have different degrees of importance for different girls and women.

Look at the six areas identified by the research. Remember: as a person moves through their lifecycle their priorities change.

These principles can be applied to all participants.

When a person goes to university, they may initially prioritise their studies and making new friends. As a result, they may become inactive and worried about joining sessions in a new town.

A parent may have been balancing their career, family, and home life for years, and has now decided for health reasons to start exercising again.

A group of friends may begin playing football casually at a local ‘pay and play session’.  Some may really enjoy playing again and decide they want to join a team and play competitively. They join a team and begin training twice a week and play games in a league as well as attending casual sessions with their friends.

You should plan your sessions to meet individual values. Designing your activities around individual values such as having fun or making social connections rather than competition can make sessions more enjoyable, encouraging individuals to keep coming back.

A people-first approach

Paralympian and Athletics Coach Esther Jones shares some key reflections from her coaching and how she ensures she is taking a person-centred approach.

Inclusive communication

Communication is the most important skill for a coach. The ability to connect with people, share your thoughts and feelings, listen, understand, and provide information and feedback, all require great communication skills.

What is inclusive communication?

Appropriate inclusive and accessible communication is essential to deliver effective sessions. We communicate in many different verbal and non-verbal ways. You may have your preferred ways of communicating, and your participants will have their preferences.

Do you know what they are?

Within a coaching session, some of the different communication methods used include:

• Speech, words, tone, and volume.
• Body language.
• Signs or signals.
• Written text, cues and reminders, use of coaching cards.
• Imagery; visuals, pictures, drawing on a whiteboard, and use of videos.

It’s important to be aware of the language you use to ensure you don’t deter people from enjoying your session.

Key considerations in relation to inclusive and accessible communication:

• Are you aware of how you communicate? Do you always use the same method(s)? Does your communication change in pressured situations?
• Body language includes conscious and unconscious movements, including facial expressions and posture. Are you aware of your body language? Does your body language ever convey a different message to what you say? This may be confusing to participants. Remember to smile, as this will help create a welcoming and inclusive environment.
• Are you using a written format that is easy to read and accessible for everyone? Consider how they will read your written text. Will this be on a phone, laptop, smart device?

Body language

Body language and facial expressions are extremely powerful and can reinforce or impact your verbal communication. If you’re frowning when giving praise, what is the message that person receives? If you are giving feedback but not looking at the person, do they think you mean the points you have raised or value/care about them improving?

Written communication

Questioning

It’s important that you always check for understanding of your participants. Ensure this is done through open questions that encourage discussion and thought rather than closed questions requiring a yes or no answer. There may be occasions when a closed question works, such as to check if participants have heard an instruction, to assess their understanding, or to assist younger participants in narrowing down a decision or choice. However, as a general rule, closed questions should be used less frequently than open questions.

Take up time: provide enough time for participants to process and answer your questions. Never answer for someone or complete their sentence for them.

It is both what you say and how it is heard that is important. Think about the emotion in your communication, not just the message itself.  A really simple 'check in' before delivering your message is to consider how you would receive it if you were the participant.

It’s important that you demonstrate active listening as part of your approach to communication. Active listening means you give participants your full attention including their non-verbal communication.

As part of active listening, you should always try to ensure good eye contact, ask open questions, and reflect back what has been said.

Don’t forget: there will also be differences in your participants’ reasons for being active, their goals, and how they learn, all of which will further influence your coaching and leadership style.

Visible commitment: Is your passion for inclusion visible? Do you question the current situation? Hold the organisation and staff to account? Make a commitment to inclusive practice in your coaching?

Humility: Are you humble about your achievements, recognise and own your mistakes, create a safe space for participants and other coaches to contribute, make suggestions and co-create sessions?

Awareness of bias: ‘Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes’ encourages us to pause and consider someone else’s position. Consider how things look, feel and sound to them, becoming aware of your ‘blind spots’, and considering the lens you look through. Demonstrate knowledge of your own biases and make decisions based on people’s abilities.

Curious: Do you have an active mind, asking questions and searching for answers? Listen without passing judgement, and attempt to understand those around you with empathy and understanding.

Inclusively intelligent: Do you pay attention to other people's experiences, situations, and culture, flexing your approach and adjusting as necessary?

Think collaboration: Do you encourage cooperation? Empower others to take responsibility? Create a safe space for a variety of thoughts, ideas, and views? Value time spent creating connection and caring to develop group cohesion and empower others.

Adapting your communication

As part of delivering an inclusive coaching session, you may need to adapt your communication to meet the needs of participants. This is part of providing a person-centred environment.

You may need to adapt:

• the language or words you use
• the volume or tone of your speech
• your timing
• where you stand
• your body language
• signals used.

The key thing you must do is ask your participants how to best to communicate with them: don’t make assumptions. Keep asking this question as preferences may change over time, and ensure that you provide opportunities for participant feedback.

Examples of how you might adapt your communication:

• Change your position to ensure participants can clearly see and hear you. For example, don't stand with the sun behind you, and avoid covering your mouth in case participants need to lip read.
• Always be clear and concise. However, keep in mind individuals will understand language or retain information differently, including if English is not their first language. Therefore, you may need to speak more slowly, break information into chunks and reinforce key information using demonstrations, imagery or signs.
• Do you always use participants’ names? If you use pronouns, do you know their preference? E.g., he, she, them. Do you know the terminology your participants prefer? E.g., wheelchair user.

Remember: language evolves and preferences for terminology will depend on the individual.

A great approach to understanding what your participants need is to ask their opinion. The Women in Sport network created ‘think, say, do’ as a way for coaches to consider what is important and ask great questions.

As we explore the practical tools and approaches you can use to deliver an inclusive session, consider how you can apply these to your coaching.

Think about your planning, in-session delivery and how you reflect on your sessions, behaviours, and participant engagement. This will help enhance the experience for you and your participants.

Throughout the next section, we will consider barriers to participation, adapting and modifying activities to meet your participants’ needs, positively managing behaviour and the role of supporters (assistance coaches and personal assistants/carers) in the sessions.

Even before taking part in your session, are you aware that a participant may have experienced several barriers to being there? This may include:

• self-confidence or perceptions of others
• lack of experience of physical activity and sport
• cost of clothing or equipment
• parental/carer support
• transport to the venue and accessibility issues.

Therefore, you need to ensure potential barriers within your session are identified and overcome. This is where a person-centred approach and rapport with participants is essential.

Barriers to participation can be split into three types: psychological, logistical, and physical.

Psychological barriers may arise from the beliefs and perceptions of the individual or from the attitudes and perceptions of other individuals. For example, lack of confidence in their ability or previously being told they cannot take part.

Logistical barriers include anything to do with the set-up of the session, such as transport links, costs, timings of the sessions, duration of the session, distance to the venue and language barriers.

Physical barriers include elements such as lack of time, lack of energy, fear of injury, and cost of specific equipment.

The Activity Inclusion Model (AIM)

The STEP Tool

How and when to adapt activities

How and when you adapt your sessions will be based on the participants, your observations and discussions with them. You may need to adapt your session if it is too challenging or too easy for participants. or if the activity you have planned isn’t working as you expected to achieve the outcome.

You may identify that a group of participants need further support on a particular skill and so design an activity tailored to their needs. Likewise, you may adapt the space the activity takes place in to enable wheelchair users and ambulant participants (those able to walk) to take part together, such as by introducing zones.

Alternatively, you may alter the pace of the activity based on fitness levels, such as walking football. You may also need to consider how you could adapt your activities if someone is new to the session, returning after injury, finding tasks too easy or performing at a high level.

Remember: the adaptations you make may not always work first time. Don’t worry if this happens. Speak to your participants, get their ideas for how it could be improved and try again. This is an important part of the coaching process, as you reflect on the session and the outcomes to aid your planning for the next session.

Looking for inspiration? The Activity Alliance Inclusive Activity Cards show how you could adapt your activities.

Why not have a conversation with other coaches? Share how you adapt your activities and find out if they have a different approach and ideas that you can use. It’s great to speak to coaches from other activities and sports as they may have a different approach you can apply.

Positively managing behaviour

How you positively manage behaviour is a question that regularly comes up. When you experience challenging behaviour, the first thing you need to understand is the cause. Is the behaviour down to the session not meeting someone’s needs, that an individual doesn’t understand what is being asked of them, that they aren’t having fun or something else?

You should also consider if this is a one off, out of character behaviour that could indicate something has happened to influence the person. Is it regular behaviour or could it be triggered by someone or something in or out of the session?

Remember: if you are unsure and believe there is a safeguarding issue you should report this to your safeguarding/welfare officer.

Possible strategies to help you manage disruption in your sessions:

• Tactically ignoring it. Do you need to highlight the issue? Will it stop itself? If you leave it, will it become a bigger problem? Will others join in or become affected by the behaviour?
• ‘Smart groups.’ Changing groups and moving people away from each other who may become easily distracted or fall out with each other. Asking people to pair up, and number themselves one and two, before putting the ones and twos together is an easy and non-invasive way to separate a ‘challenging pair.’
• Proximity control. You’re likely to be always moving around the group and between activities. Often, just moving closer to a disruptive or off task group is enough for them to return to the task or seek clarification on what they need to do!
• Time of task. It can be difficult for individuals to stay on task for a long period of time. By framing the activity, duration will enable focus.
• Check in verbally. Asking what they are doing and if they understand the task, and naming the person and the behaviour can help. ‘Chris, please stop swearing, I don’t appreciate that in the session. Not everyone is comfortable with the language.’ Remember the aim is to positively change the behaviour, praise publicly and challenge privately. People are more likely to challenge, push back and become frustrated if they feel embarrassed because you spoke to them in front of others.
• Acknowledging emotions. It can be as easy as acknowledging how someone feels. They want someone to notice how they are feeling, and the behaviour is a way of signalling this. ‘I can see you are frustrated; how can I help?’; ‘I noticed from your expression that you are unhappy’. Often this doesn’t require a judgement or follow-up, just an acknowledgement that you have noticed how they’re feeling. Interestingly this helps build a social connection, increases relationships and has been shown to develop trust.
• Safe space/time out. There may be times when you need to ask someone to leave or take time out of a session. It’s important to do two things. Firstly, issue a warning (or two) and give the individual an opportunity to correct their actions and behaviours, then warn them of the consequences of their behaviour: the time out. If the time out takes place, reaffirm why they are having a time out, what behaviour or actions you would like to see and how long the time out is for. Often a few minutes is enough to ‘break’ the situation. If you have a time out or miss a session with a young person, take the time to follow up with the parent/carer.
• Reflective conversations/restorative practice. This may be at the end of a session, after a few weeks of minor incidents. Take the time to have a conversation and reset. This may be with two participants who have had a disagreement and you would like them to work better together within your sessions. The key is that this is to restore and reset the situation to move forward not another opportunity to just remind them of what they have done. Reset to start afresh.
• Catch them in positive behaviour. When you see something that a participant is doing well, catch them in it and praise them publicly. This is very powerful for an individual who may be used to being challenged or ‘told off’. Hearing praise and confirmation of good work/effort is very empowering and a big driver to change behaviour as they want more praise and affirmations.

Taking a person-centred approach can help you understand the reasons for the challenging behaviour. With this understanding it may be that simple changes to the planning or delivery of your sessions eliminates future negative behaviour.

Remember the importance of involving your participants in planning, decision-making and feedback. This encourages them to take responsibility for their development and growth.

The role of supporters

When planning and delivering your sessions, it is important to consider those who assist or support delivery, including coaching assistants, informal volunteers, or supporters (personal assistants/carers) for specific participants.

It is crucial that these individuals are properly supported to deliver at a level appropriate to their skill level and experience.

When you have individuals with additional needs attending your sessions, they should not be singled out or partnered with a coaching assistant if this isn’t reflective of practice with all participants.

Remember in some instances it may be more effective for you to work with a small group of participants needing additional support and a coaching assistant to deliver an activity with the rest of the participants.

Are all the coaching team aware of individuals’ needs and challenges? How do you work as a team to support the individuals within your sessions?

Activity Alliance conducted research with the people who support disabled participants to be active. The findings offer advice on how to engage with supporters/carers and help increase activity levels of disabled people.

Whilst the research focused on disabled people, the findings can be applied to individuals with other protected characteristics. 

• Support networks may operate in a professional or personal capacity e.g., family, friends, or professionally paid support.
• These networks can play an important role in encouraging individuals to be active.
• The influence the support network can have is often impacted by how physically active the individual supporters are.
• The most common type of support given is acting as a motivator and inspirer. This may include providing new ideas to be active or offering logistical support to enable them to take part.

You should consider support networks in your communication and promotion of sessions, as they may be the person that makes initial contact with you or decides to share with the disabled person. 

To encourage individuals to be more active, their supporters must:

• be confident the activity/sport is relevant and suitable
• be able to access information about the sessions, including key questions about safety, facilities, environment, audience and whether it is competitive or not. 

Related Resources