About Us
The ASAPD Strategy
Together with the support of Australian Sports Commission, leaders from National Sporting Organisations for People with a Disability (NSODs) united to establish an Alliance, dedicated to better serve the disability sport sector. These NSODs are lead organisations with participant numbers, members, and volunteers that collectively impact many thousands of people across Australia, and including Blind Sports Australia, Deaf Sports Australia, Disability Sports Australia, Disabled Wintersport Australia, Riding for the Disabled Australia, Special Olympics Australia, Sport Inclusion Australia, and Transplant Australia.
Our Vision
All Australians have an opportunity to engage in sport and physical activity in a welcoming and inclusive environment.
Our Purpose
We collaborate, advocate, and facilitate inclusive sport and physical activity for people with a disability, impairment, or limitation.
Our Objectives
- Be the representative body for all people who have a disability, impairment, or limitation to enable them to fully participate in sport and physical activity in Australia.
- Lead with a unified approach which aims to build active enriched lives through a welcoming sporting and physical sector environment based on social inclusion principles
- Advocate, educate, inform, support, and build the capacity of the wider sporting sector to be inclusive for all people who have a disability, impairment, or limitation
- Foster relationships with governments and other key stakeholders to support the accessibility of sport and physical activity sector
- Ensure the ASAPD has a sustainable governance and management structure which supports its vision and mission.
Provide a central information platform(s) which promotes and shares key information on being more accessible and inclusive
Our Strategic Goals
- Collectively achieve greater policy and funding outcomes with Governments
- Improve the effectiveness of the sector by sharing resources and working in a collaborative and efficient way
- Build and expand awareness of the ASAPD’s purpose, facilitating exposure for the NSOD’s by telling our collective story.
- Ensure effective leadership and management of the business enterprise
- Foster and develop meaningful relationships with current and future stakeholders and major sporting events
ASAPD benefits
The benefits of this new unified and collaborative approach have already resulted in:
- More cohesion in the disability sporting sector.
- Greater efficiency in sport delivery.
- Improved working relationships with NSO’s and inclusion as an integral part of the wider sporting industry.
- Enhanced programs and pathways from grassroots to high performance.
- Increased capacity to engage more inactive people in sport and physical activity.
- Unified approach to building stronger physical and health outcomes.
- Improved efficiencies in sharing of resources between agencies.
- Greater communication and awareness about the power of sport and physical activity to deliver social inclusion.
- Increased research and innovation projects in inclusive sport.
Outcomes from the ASAPD
Some tangible outcomes from the ASPAD’s short existence, include:
- Submission to the updated National Disability Plan
- Input into the National Disability Survey
- Input into the new Sport Australia Community Coaching – Essential Skills Resource
- Delegations to State/Territory Government Ministers for Sport, Health, Social Services promoting inclusion
- Development of a runway of events in Australia that the ASAPD members will be or a proposing to conduct over the next 10 years
- Work with Sport Integrity Australia and the National Sports Tribunal on adopting the National Integrity Framework and associated policies for all NSOD’s