Volunteering Roles
I am proud to have been a volunteer with Special Olympics Great Britain since 2008, starting at a local athletics club (Top Club Athletics) in Sheffield. I worked at the National Summer Games in Leicester and Bath as personal assistant to my brother Jonathan and regional physio support for Yorkshire & Humberside.

Since then it has been fantastic to hold two roles with Special Olympics Great Britain (SOGB) as Team GB Physiotherapist at World Summer Games 2015 in Los Angeles & 2019 in Abu Dhabi.

Another role I hold is working as Clinical Director for Health and Wellbeing for FUNfitness for Great Britain. Special Olympics hosts free health screening events for athletes taking part at events where people can be screened by Physiotherapists, Podiatrists, Ophthalmologists, Audiologist and Dentists and provided with equipment to support them and referred back into mainstream healthcare services.

The overall aim is to make people more aware of their own health needs and signpost people to services they can access locally.

A secondary aim but of equal importance is utilising local volunteers. We work with local health service and university volunteers to undertake screening and provide training on
how to support people with Learning Disabilities; the idea is to create a legacy locally or healthcare practitioners who are more able to meet the needs of those with Learning Disabilities.

I have had the pleasure of working at Healthy Athlete screenings at the World Winter Games 2017 in Graz, Austria, Sheffield and Stirling at the 40th Anniversary Games.

Imagine a world where having difficulty understanding and retaining information given to you meant you weren't allowed to live as long as other people...

73% of people with Autism and/or Learning Disabilities have experienced hate crimes.

People don't die prematurely from a Learning Disability... They die prematurely because of poor healthcare and support.