To ask the Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure how her Department is supporting the needs of children with disabilities from low income families to access and utilise sports facilities.

Under the Recreation and Youth Service (NI) Order 1986, the provision of leisure facilities and services for all communities, including children with disabilities from low income families, rests in the first instance with District Councils. While the pricing and charging policies for leisure services is purely a matter for each Council, Sport NI works closely with Councils to provide support around the development of leisure facilities and services.

Currently, Sport NI is working with the new District Councils to develop a Sports Facilities Strategy and eleven associated Area Reports for each Council. These Area Reports will take account of existing facilities and the need for new or improved facilities in each Council area. Disabled access will also be considered as part of this work.

Other support being provided by Sport NI for children with disabilities and their families include work with Outdoor Recreation NI (ORNI) to open up opportunities around outdoor facilities. Examples include: -

As part of the ‘Active Outdoors - Get Outdoor Weekend’ Sport NI supported the provision of 80 free of charge events at a range of family-friendly venues/sports throughout NI, many of which were suitable for people with a disability.

Sport NI also enabled ORNI to develop a project with Autism NI to provide free of charge surfing lessons to young people with autism. As a result of this, ORNI has also provided subsidised coach education programmes for providers/instructors in paddlesports and climbing to improve understanding of how these activities can be made more inclusive for people with a disability.