NSWIS Para Unit: 12 months of chasing dreams, delivering results

On this day 12 months ago, representatives from the NSW Government, Australian Institute of Sport and Paralympics Australia attended the New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS) HQ in Sydney Olympic Park to announce a combined total of $4.6million would be invested to create a Para Unit that would help identify athletes from across the state to ensure the Brisbane 2032 Paralympic Games are the most successful in the nation’s history. 

While the desire to win medals was identified as a driving force for the creation of the Unit,  the NSW Minister of Sport, The Hon. Steve Kamper MP, stressed another reason underpinning the State Government’s decision to contribute $2.305 million to create the Unit was to help remove the 160-plus systemic barriers preventing entry and progression in Para sports. 

“The Minns Government believes that no athlete should be held back by barriers,” Minister Kamper told the audience which included a host of Paralympians and dignitaries. “We’re committed to making sport accessible to all because everyone deserves the chance to chase their dreams.” 

Marianne Loh, Head of NSWIS’s Para Unit (pictured below), took time out of her busy schedule to explain how she and her team are helping athletes chase their dreams as the Brisbane Games draw closer. 

NSWIS: How has the funding that was provided by the NSW Government, Australian Institute of Sport, and Paralympics Australia to form the NSWIS Para Unit helped people with disabilities to enter sport?  

Marianne Loh (ML): It’s allowed it at a very, very high level. The funding has allowed us to reduce the number of barriers that exist and prevent athletes to identify as an athlete, and to encourage people who don’t [necessarily consider themselves athletic] to try sport. I think having the Para unit expand its network through sport and other sectors, such as health and education, has been one way of us helping the system reduce those barriers. Secondary to that, it’s also reducing barriers for athletes to progress in Para-sport once they’re in it. That means doing things like helping them get into classification assessments earlier rather than later, getting to their first competitions, providing access to coaching expertise which has traditionally been challenging.  

NSWIS: Today is the one-year anniversary of the funding announcement, what has the unit achieved over the last 12 months?  

ML:  A lot! The unit has connected with over 250 athletes across the grassroots to developing and emerging athletes already in the system. We’ve organised for them to receive the support they need at the level of training they’re currently at. We’re really proud we’ve been able to do so much in such a short amount of time. It hasn’t been easy for the team because even though we’re reducing barriers, the barriers still exist and the athletes themselves experience them as well. Those barriers include limited access to inclusive sport pathways and coaching. It’s my hope our work can continually influence and support change across the system, so organisations and people are more inclusive in the way they offer and provide sport.  

NSWIS: The NSW Para Unit’s purpose is to unearth talent to help make Brisbane 2032 Australia’s most successful Games. Are you discovering athletes who could make that happen?  

ML: Every time we run a talent identification opportunity there’s always a handful of athletes who excite us. We’ve had athletes come through in Sydney who were potentially stagnant in sports, but through our talent identification programme they’ve found a sport they can be more successful at; a sport they’ll enjoy, and a sport they’ll be eligible to compete in as well. Sam Stanford [who recently won a state rowing title after switching from canoe sprint] is one who isn’t a ‘new’ athlete, but we could see he has the potential of becoming a great athlete if they were  connected to a sport they might be better suited to.  

NSWIS: Name the unit’s greatest successes?  

ML: Sam’s one. The other success we can celebrate is we’ve gone outside our capital city to deliver sport sampling and talent identification. That’s a balancing act. We don’t want to do it so that we spread ourselves too thinly because we want to [attend regional centres] properly so we can identify ongoing support for the athlete. There’s two parts to this: one is being there and actually seeing – and supporting – the talent ourselves, as we did during the weekend we went to Newcastle. Secondary to that, is partnering with the Regional Academies of Sport to offer ongoing support to the athletes. 

NSWIS: What other regional areas will you be visiting soon? Who is eligible and how do they register? 

We are exploring opportunities to be out in the Far West region of NSW but in the meantime, we should be visiting Bathurst in April, Wollongong in July. We call on people with a physical disability, people with an intellectual disability, people who are blind or low vision with an interest in high performance sport! Eligible athletes then get invited to physical performance testing, sport sampling sessions, and introduced to classification, strength & conditioning, performance health and sport-specific pathways. Best way to connect is to hop on the NSWIS website and register on this form https://nswis.com.au/nswisparaunit. 

NSWIS: What have been the unit’s biggest challenges and how were they overcome?  

ML: The challenge we have less control over is the readiness of the sports pathways to take on more athletes, and that’s because we’re creating a larger funnel of athletes at the base starting their journey in sport. Now that we’re finding athletes, the challenge is actually placing them into an environment that suits them. And what we’re finding is they don’t necessarily live in an environment that fosters their development or doesn’t have available to them the sport they prefer to participate in. That said, what we’ve been able to control is how we influence the non-sporting sectors to embrace these athletes. That’s been a matter of uplifting the capability of other professionals so occupational therapists, physiotherapists, recreational therapists, support workers, teachers have a heightened awareness of Para –sport to help foster an interest in helping to refer or deliver a sporting experience. We’re getting more buy-in from people we never really thought about being influential to sport and they are making a difference in uplifting the system.  

NSWIS: Are you finding over the last 12 months you’ve developed a greater awareness of the NSWIS Para Unit throughout the sporting community? Are people talking about it?  

ML: Absolutely! Paralympics Australia has increased its classification staff, and their scope has involved spreading Para system knowledge across allied health, disability organisations, schools. We’ve jumped on the same bandwagon and teamed up to deliver aligned messages. The very obvious change has been noted in our data: when we first went out to recruit athletes, we had five out of 150 people registered from outside of sport. Since then, we’ve probably had another 50 to 60 people register, and I’d be confident in saying at least a quarter of them come from outside of sport. 

NSWIS: What’s been your personal highlight?  

ML: Every day is a highlight for me because work is my ‘happy place’ and that’s from knowing we’re making a difference to not just the system, but to athletes who are trying their best to become the best they can be. If we can help them win medals or get to the Paralympic Games, that’s just a win-win situation. I also work with a really amazing team who complement my skillsets because everybody knows something or has a solution I don’t. It’s a great team.  

NSWIS: How will success be measured?  

ML: In the short term, it’s the number of athletes that we can identify who are new [to sport], and who potentially need the most support as well. We’re working to ensure that, in the long term, we see Australia’s Para athlete numbers grow. Currently the pipeline of Para athletes is like a reverse ‘pyramid’ where there are more athletes progressed in Para sport than there are entering. So, inverting the pyramid to have more athletes starting out would be great. That would lead to more athletes, a sustainable number of athletes winning – and winning well – at the Paralympic Games. 

Daniel Lane, NSWIS