We now have two staff who have had years of experience supporting people who have disabilities as support staff, who are now qualified as Personal Trainers.
Well, actually nearly two. Gus is still about a month away from finishing his personal training course at the end of 2024. So, he is supervised by Domenic Sullivan. Both these guys, Domenic and Gus, also have university degrees related to exercise, and Dom is also a qualified coach in different areas. Both men have strong and current ties to local sports clubs , which have already seen bring about great opportunities for people we support. In fact Domenic, who has been doing this a bit longer than Gus, has been instrumental in working with local footy and cricket clubs to develop programs that more easily include people who have disabilities. A lot more peoples who have a disabilities are paying sport with local clubs because of Doms work.
We started this program because we wanted to make it easier for people we support to engage in health, fitness and sports related programs. We were hearing a lot of frustration from participants, who didn’t join programs because they couldnt find the right trainer, or who were being supported by trainers who didn’t understand how to support people who communicated in different ways, or they didn’t know how to modify environments so that it suited someone’s particular needs, or they got embarrassed of flustered, and didn’t know what to do if someone’s behaviours changed quickly or they had a meltdown. The benefit of having staff who are both experienced support workers and qualified trainers, mean that these moments don’t become challenges, they are just part of developing a fitness programs that makes sense for each person.
Domenic and Gus, provide their training sessions in gyms, homes , parks, sports ground, wherever it makes sense for the person they are supporting.
At present they are booked up and don’t have much, or any, space for new people, however if this is something that interests you, give Dean a call on 9387 9985 and have a chat about it. It is the sort of program where new places can come up for different reasons and we are always happy to try and add more support where we can.
By the Way
When we first started to think about this program, because participants and their families were telling us that it was something they needed, we looked around to see if we could find personal trainers who had the experience we wanted. There were some good people out there but none with the full range of experiences that we needed. We wanted people with experience that meant it didn’t matter about the level of disability or behaviours, they could step in and help regarless. We didn’t find those people, so we decided to make our own.
