Who We Are
Who We Are
I acknowledge and pay respect to the land and the traditional families of the Yugambeh region of South East Queensland, including the Kombumerri, Mununjali, Wangerriburra and others, and their Elders past present and emerging.
In the year of a Paralympics, there was a wonderful spotlight on the progression of para-sport with the Paralympics enabling conversations on where Australia is in regards to sport participation for people with disability.
Within the Sport Access Foundation community, we were incredibly excited for five of our Honour Roll members who represented Australia at the Paris Paralympics in Swimming, Boccia and Para-triathlon.
Across the Disability community, it was also a year of key milestones with the final recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission published, and the completion of the NDIS review.
The Australian Government in September 2023 released the final Disability Royal Commission with 222 recommendations (172 of these were primary or shared responsibility to the federal government) to promote a more inclusive society that supports the independence of people with disability and their right to live free from violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation.
This year, in 2024, Disability advocates and organisations were disappointed to find that 13 recommendations were accepted in full, while 117 were accepted in principle, 36 were labelled “for further consideration”, and six were “noted”.
Sport Access Foundation is committed to meeting all the requirements in relation to the safety and well-being of young Australians with disability particularly regarding their safety in sport and recreation. These recommendations formed part of Volume 14 examined which examined what was “learned about institutional responses to child sexual abuse in sport and recreation contexts. It examined the nature and adequacy of institutional responses and draws out common failings. It made recommendations to prevent child sexual abuse from occurring in sport and recreation and, where it does occur, to help ensure effective responses.”
It is our role at Sport Access Foundation, as an advocate of enabling and improving access in sport for young Australians with disability, that we collaborate and are invited to participate and co-design with federal, state and local governing sporting bodies in the delivery of their sporting programs and services. Together, we can ensure best practices that safeguard all children including those with disability in their sport and recreation participation. *
*Disability Royal Commission Final Report – published 2023
The NDIS review report was released December 7, 2023, and included two parts:
The Final report included 26 recommendations and 139 supporting actions. Led by co-chairs Prof. Bruce Bonyhady AM and Ms Lisa Paul AO PSM, the Review panel examined the design, operations, and sustainability of the NDIS.
You can view the Final Report here.
Sport Access Foundation understands the NDIS capacity building funding is to upskill, elevate and build a person’s capacity to live the independent life they seek. The supports for Daily Life activities, for Community and Social Participation also enable a person with disability to close the inequity gap that a person without a disability does not experience when it comes to choices to engage and mobilise in everyday community on the same level as everyone else.
The role of Sport Access Foundation is to ensure we can facilitate and enable participation in sport for all young Australians with disability, and effectively upskill and educate our communities.
The NDIS has empowered people with disability to lead independent lives and have more choice and control on what they need.
It is all our roles to achieve inclusion across our everyday. That is to galvanise, to innovate and to change out-dated systematic ways, to close the inequity gap and ensure equality in people with disability opportunity to connect to their services.
The NDIS has a purpose to close the inequity gap and provide those supports for people with disability to complement existing services.
In the sporting community, we all have a role to deliver, design and modernise our programs and services that challenge the ableist approach, and are contemporary in their flexibility and delivery to ensure everyone is included.
Over the years I have had many conversations with Parents, School Teachers, CEO, Professional Elite Sport providers, Coaches, Disability Advocates and many more who share their stories of how they have modified, or had conversations on improving access for young Australians with disability in sport. To all of you, thank you.
Together we can go from Good to Great.
This year, we continued with focus areas in the StrategyPlan 2023-2025, with the five key pillars outlining SAF’s priorities being:
We would like to congratulate these five Honour Roll members who represented Australia at the Paris 2024 Paralympics. You can read about their achievements here.
Thank you to our 2024 Independent Panel for your time and dedication in helping us with the challenging and rewarding task of selection the final recipients.
BlueScope our founding partner provides significant resources for the foundation to develop and cement its position as a leading children’s sporting charity in Australian sport.
Thank you to our partners for their continued support.
Thank you to our fellow industry partners who collaborate with us and share insights to improve how we work:
Thank you to all the applicants who applied this year, and for those who were not successful, we appreciate your tenacity and willingness to share and seek the support you need. To the parents and carers, I hear you when you share your stories of barriers that continually present and the time you give to educate and advocate to the community on how we can all be better.
To those applicants who were successful this year, congratulations and you are now etched into our extraordinary Sport Access Foundation Honour Roll. We encourage you to continue to be the leaders you are through your actions and showing how with a little bit of innovation, and flexible mindsets, we can improve access to sport.
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Your donation will go towards providing financial assistance and support to enable children with a disability to participate in sporting activities. Every dollar goes direct to the grant recipients to help with the cost of their sport, including modified equipment, carer costs, transport and fees.
