Training

Advocacy and Activity Buddy Scheme

As we all know, volunteers are an integral part of Sport and potentially even more so within disability sport. The Advocacy and Activity Buddy Scheme (AABS) is a project run by the EFDS to support clubs and physical activity centres and groups to set up volunteer programmes to help support disabled people to become more active.

The AABS project has developed a toolkit and resources to inform, train and support volunteer coordinators and their prospective volunteers. Within the toolkit there are administrative templates (eg: application forms, expense claims forms, etc..), training manuals and a power point volunteer workshop. To accompany these resource AABS will shortly be launching an online volunteer training site, linked to the EFDS website .

The AABS training site is aimed at all those people wishing to support disabled people to access sport and physical activity within a club, group or leisure centre. It can be accessed through any PC or laptop which makes training volunteers less time-consuming for the club or site and more accessible for the volunteer, regardless of their ability. As such it is hoped that volunteer training can be more accessible for disabled people wishing to support other disabled people. It covers a number of topics from understanding what volunteering is to the skills and knowledge needed and what a volunteer can expect in return.

The training is split into 6 sections with questions after each section. The training can be accessed as and when the volunteer is able to do so and does not have to be completed in one go.

The AABS online training site is due for launch by the end of April but please below link to access the EFDS website and register your interest. Once the site is live AABS will email you with the appropriate link.

It is hoped that you and your volunteers can take advantage of this training to enable more people to support more disabled people more effectively. If you require any further information on the AABS project and receive the AABS resources please contact Sarah Cohen by email: scohen@efds.co.uk or by calling 0113 245 0610.