Jogability joy

Our Jogability project, which has brought the joy of being active to girls and young women with additional support needs, has been a great success.

In the 12 months it has been running, we’ve helped to set up four jog groups - two in Edinburgh, and one each in Glasgow and North Lanarkshire, with groups in Dundee and East Ayrshire raring to go - all groups will return when it is safe to do so after lockdown. The project was set up with the help of sportscotland through the Women and Girls Fund, and was led by jogscotland project worker Andrea Gavin (pictured).

It has proved that, by adapting one or two small things, we can easily increase participation in physical activity by people who might need a wee bit more support. We adapted the junior jog leader training so more young people and sports leaders with additional support needs, or a disability, could become junior jog leaders. They then led sessions for younger pupils in their school or another school, getting valuable experience, and putting their work towards things like the volunteering element of the Duke of Edinburgh Award. We also adapted our junior jogscotland activity cards into ‘social stories’ using pictures, so everyone could understand the cards. The focus of the sessions was always on fun, increasing wellbeing and understanding our bodies better - we included wellbeing tools at the end of every session, like a mindfulness silly walk or some breathing exercises. We also created hints and tips for including folk in your sessions with different abilities, and provided them to the young leaders.

Andrea said: “Just under half of the girls and young women said they felt more confident as a result of taking part, and about 80 per cent said they felt healthier, which is fantastic! I saw such a wonderful change in confidence in the girls, who went from needing some encouragement at the start to wanting to be first when they were in a relay!

“I loved seeing the young women become leaders - the others were more likely to take part when they had the newly-trained young leaders in charge of a session, and it was so lovely to see their leadership skills come through.” While the first round of Jogability work has drawn to a close, we hope we’ll have the opportunity for more, similar work in future.