persons with DISabilities PLAYing competitive sports

The present Small collaborative Partnership Project “Persons with Disabilities Playing Competitive Sports” (DISPLAY) (Project number 590395-EPP-1-2017-1-ES-SPO-SSCP) ran from January 2018 until June 2019 and had for goal to promote the participation of persons with disabilities to sport competitions in order to improve their social inclusion and their overall health and well-being, thus strengthening the links between sport and health. The project allowed the participant organizations to gain competence and skills in organizing and implementing competitive sport programmes and events. This goal was achieved by transferring the know-how from expert partners to other partners throughout a series of Transnational meetings, Good Practices guides, Case Reports, State-of-the-art research and informal communications among the partners. The by-product of the gained knowledge was the enhancement of the health and well-being of the persons with disabilities by involving persons with learning disabilities in sport competitions. The key points of the project were the four Transnational meetings, one more than planned. During these events participants from the participant institutions were able to share good practices and to learn from experts in the field that were invited to the events, increasing the international profile and network of the participants. The Transnational meetings also provided room for asking questions and solving doubts in regards to ongoing projects. That is, through formal and informal contacts all the organizations (especially those who were non-expert) were able to discuss best practices and to enquire about new methodologies and to monitor the implementation of new programs. The added Transnational meeting was really important because it allowed the different organizations to put in practice most of the issues raised during the project (this Transnational meeting was embedded into a week of competitive sports).The project also produced different documents and reported the successful stories of some athletes with learning disabilities. In particular it produced four best practice guides to facilitate training sessions: three of them were particular to tennis, basketball, and swimming, and one was transversal as it provided guidelines to manage conflict (i.e. aggression, outburst) amongst athletes with learning disabilities. These best practices were accompanied by two successful case studies of persons with learning disabilities that took up sports (athletics and swimming) without previous knowledge and developed enough skills to participate in competitions. Likewise the case studies are important evidence that show how practicing sport is an essential feature for promoting autonomy, self-esteem, health, social inclusion and so on which its benefits are beyond those of mere physical activity. Finally, the results and all the documents have been communicated and disseminated through different means (i.e. social networks, website) and the project was made public via similar means as well as producing news on social networks (i.e. twitter), press releases, and publishing e-newsletters. All documents are free for the public. In summary, this project achieved its goals by transferring good practices and sharing the know-how regarding how to use competitions as a principal tool for enhancing the life of people with learning disabilities. Moreover it heavily impacted on the ultimate beneficiares since the professionals that took part in the project, who are also in daily contact with people with learning disabilities, increased their knowledge and learned new methods to use sports as a educational and health tool in their work. Likewise the format of the project (i.e. Transnational meetings) provided opportunities for networking and spur innovative ideas. The project allowed developing bonding relationships among the participating institutions that are likely to be sustained in time.