First ever BMC disability symposium

Posted by Carey Davies on 16/10/2013

Do you take people with disabilities hill walking, climbing or mountaineering? Get up to speed with the latest best practice at the BMC's inaugural disability symposium, with talks from paraclimbing world champion Fran Brown, mountaineer and quadruple amputee Jamie Andrew and climbing adventurer Andy Kirkpatrick.

The BMC is hosting its inaugural disability symposium in conjunction with the Lake District Calvert Trust on 16-17 November. This two-day Continuing Professional Development (CPD) event based at the Calvert Trust’s residential outdoor centre in Keswick will give delegates the chance to learn new skills and techniques for taking people with disabilities climbing, hill-walking and mountaineering.

The weekend is suitable both for experienced practitioners who will be able to keep up-to-date with current developments and share best practise, as well as people who have not worked with disabled people before but recognise it as an important area for their continued professional development.

With workshop presenters and speakers including paraclimbing world champion Fran Brown, mountaineer and quadruple amputee Jamie Andrew and climbing adventurer Andy Kirkpatrick, this event promises to give you a host of new ideas to inspire and challenge you.

Confirmed workshop titles include:

Making sense of climbing and hill-walking for people with complex multi-sensory impairments
Moving and assisting people in an outdoor environment
Introduction to autistic spectrum disorders
Wheelchair abseiling: Techniques and problem solving
Performance coaching of people with disabilities
Climbing with people with traumatic injuries
‘Climbing for All’. A day-long MTA certified course which is a great introduction to working with people with disabilities.

As well as workshops, discussions and speakers, there will be the opportunity for delegates to gain experience by running activity sessions for people from the local area who have disabilities and wish to try out climbing or hill-walking.

Thanks to funding from Sport England, the ticket price for this event is just £90. This includes two nights board and accommodation and entry to the full programme of speakers and workshops. Attendance carries 1 CPD point for MTA members.

For more details and booking information please contact JillL@lakedistrict.calvert-trust.org.uk.

« Back

TAGS

disabled

para-climbing

paraclimbing

Click on the tags to explore more

BMC Disability Symposium 2013 report

19/11/2013

Over the weekend of 15 - 17 November the Lake District hosted a sold-out gathering of outdoor folk, from big name climbers to ordinary people, with one thing in common: a passion for adventure.
Read more »

National Competitions Schedule 2024

21/12/2023

Following a review, we are pleased to present the provisional competitions calendar for 2024.
Read more »

Entries now open for the British Lead, Speed and Paraclimbing Championships 2023

05/08/2023

The British Lead, Speed and Paraclimbing Championships makes a welcome return to EICA Ratho in Scotland. The 2023 edition of the event takes place between 8 - 10 September 2023.
Read more »

Post a Comment

Posting as Anonymous Community Standards

3000 characters remaining

Submit

Would you like to login to post your comment?

Your comment has been posted below, click here to view it

Comments are currently on | Turn off comments

Anonymous User

22/09/2013

"Do you take people with disabilities hill walking, climbing or mountaineering?"

How about "Are you a disabled person who hill walks, climbs or mountaineers?"

The Women's Climbing Symposium doesn't presume that its audience is entirely made up of men who want to learn how to "take women climbing", after all ...

I appreciate the need for able-bodied professionals to become better informed, and it sounds like this event will be an excellent resource in that respect.

But as a disabled climber, it's a little ironic and frustrating to click through excitedly at the news that there's going to be a disability climbing symposium, and then go "... oh. This isn't meant for me."

Maybe the next disability climbing symposium could aim to include disabled climbers in its target audience as well? As people like Fran Brown demonstrate, some of us are quite good at taking ourselves places.

Like this comment (0)

Anonymous User

07/10/2013

In reference to point 2. I think that is a very fair comment. Instructors play a key role in people accessing the outdoors so this conference is targeting that particular audience. I definitely think there is potential for a conference in the near future which will target an audience of disabled people wanting to either access or develop opportunities in the outdoors. Just as a side the BMC do run a series of climbing competitions for disabled people which will be starting early 2014.
Graeme Hill GB Paraclimbing Team Manager

Like this comment (0)

Anonymous User

10/10/2013

Agree with the comments about disabled people leading this event... However, could you also wide the scope to non-apparent disabilities, such as mine - we are excluded for activities based on ignorance & fear...

Like this comment (0)

Anonymous User

14/10/2013

I feel the same as the author of comment (2). As an amputee that likes to get out and about as much as possible I'd love to meet kindred spirits, share experiences and what works and doesn't. I was disappointed that this symposium wasn't aimed at people like myself. Come on BMC, get organising!
Incidentally, I had my first experience of indoor climbing last night - great fun! Would love to know how other amputees overcome the obvious disadvantages of prosthetics...

Like this comment (0)

Carey Davies(author comment)

16/10/2013

As the commenters above have noted, this event is aimed at people who take those with disabilities into the outdoors rather than people with disabilities themselves - sorry to disappoint on this score.

It's worth pointing out that people with disabilities are welcome to attend this event if they wish - the venue and accommodation are fully accessible and there will be parts of the program which will be interesting to all, such as the speakers. However the main focus will be on encouraging new skills and best practice among practitioners, so the bulk of the weekend i.e. the workshops etc will not be relevant.

An event for people *with* disabilities has been discussed within the BMC and would be great, but it will take considerably more organising to make sure it fulfilled all needs. It's not outside the realms of possibility however, so watch this space.

Like this comment (0)

Anonymous User

16/10/2013

Just to add to a comment I made earlier (3) I would actually like to think that an event on accessing the outdoors wouldn't necessarily have to be specifically for disabled people. They could be a target group, but you could organise it where people interested in accessing the outdoors could come a long and within that ensure that all activities and events are fully accessible. Within this you could provide the option of exclusive on inclusive sessions. I am basing part of my opinion on the climbing competition which took part in Chamonix where disabled and non disabled climbers comps were run alongside each other. This I feel broke down a huge number of barriers and raised the profile of disabled climbers greatly.

Like this comment (0)

Anonymous User

06/11/2018

I got really excited when i seen this, should it not clearly say this expired or take it off.

Is there more?

Like this comment (0)