Our disability coaching sessions are led by Steve Joint.
He has past experience as one of the LTA’s Tennis Foundation wheelchair development coaches and was an ITF-accredited wheelchair coach. He has also written and presented coach education courses on various subjects, including learning disability tennis, tennis for players with visual or hearing disability, and wheelchair tennis coaching.
Since the start of September 2024 we run three different groups:
1, Fairview Farm from September 2024, which is ongoing on a weekly basis on Fridays.
2, Mixed disability from January 2025, which is ongoing on a weekly basis on Saturdays.
3, Para-Standing sessions, which ran from January 2025 to March 2025.
At the moment we do not provide a Wheelchair session, but in the past, we have done so, and we have worked with the charity Sportability during 2023 and 2024.
Fairview Farm is a centre for young adults with special educational needs.
Overall, the numbers in the group each week average at about 6, but we have had as many as 9, and 5 or 6 members of staff from Fairview accompany the participants to provide assistance where needed.
Harry Clifford, our youngest coach, assists me with the session. Harry’s calm and professional help is invaluable with this group and far exceeds his years and experience. All the players and carers have the utmost trust in him.
The mixed disability session is also aimed for teenage to young adults who are more independent and do not require a carer or assistance on court. We have a regular group of 4 attending this session, and one of the players has now joined the Club Junior beginner group on a Monday afternoon.
His Mother, who is also a teacher, has noted the improvement of her child’s concentration, verbal social skills, calmness, and desire to join in, which she feels has been a result of the Saturday morning sessions and subsequent inclusion in the Monday afternoon club session.
Para-Standing tennis is aimed at people with lower limb injuries, amputation, instability, etc. People who wish to play standing rather than using a chair. Unfortunately, only one player joined this group,p which meant that it was not a viable session to continue in the long-term.
Our session aims are to provide the following:
- To meet the individual needs of the person, for example, if you see us with Fairview participants, you will see 3 or 4 slight variations of the same activity running at the same time.
- To promote independence.
- To build cooperation and social skills.
- To help learning skills, listening, copying and doing.
- To help with communication skills, both in their listening and expression of views.
- To encourage participants to try new things without the fear of failure.
- To provide discovery-led learning with the coaches and carers to see what we can do together.
- To build confidence.
- To remove barriers and to connect with the players, and to enable them to connect with each other.
- To help improve motor skills, such as movement and balance
- To learn how to control a ball with a racket or hand.
