Contents
Micro-Grant Program
- Description
- Goals & Objectives
- Benefits
Train the Trainer’ Model Expansion
- Description
- Goals & Objectives
- Benefits
Transportation Advocacy
- Description
- Goals & Objectives
- Benefits
—————————————————————————————————————————
Micro-Grants
The fundamentals of a micro-grant program is to encourage access to the ingenuity, innovation, and capabilities that could be offered by so many individuals, but are stifled due to financial barriers. The program emphasizes supporting community partners and activists in an effort to enhance their ability to affect change and become champions of adaptive sports and fitness access and inclusion.
Through small-scale investing in the potential of many, the overall platform recognition of adaptive sports and fitness grows exponentially as more and more projects come to life and serve individuals in need. Short term growth will be monitored and made visible through the direct relationship built between the parent organization, Oak Hill, and the grantee. Of course, an essential part of the potential success of this program is to make the application process as smooth and streamlined as possible. One potential method of monitoring the application process is to assign a point system to applicants based on the goals and values employed at Oak Hill. If applicants are not in align with these criteria, the points tracking system will allow Oak Hill to intervene and hold a discussion with the applicant to offer guidance, advice and to answer any questions they might have. Of course, the project can be adjusted to fit the exact needs and directives that Oak Hill chooses; they can offer an equity based points system which rewards proposals focusing on high priority goals or demographics, such as youth adaptive sports programs—an area which Oak Hill has yet to make inroads with.
The notion that these projects were made possible via the grant program directly places Oak Hill Adaptive Sports & Fitness as a clear and capable leader in the fitness community. Sectors such as nursing homes, healthcare facilities, charity organizations, and politicians will realize the efficacy and importance of adaptive sports and fitness in providing a severely under-serviced and overlooked demographic with opportunities to increase their quality of life. Oak Hill will be able to embrace the roll of influencer and industry leader by using the skills and specialized knowledge they already possess to address the different challenges and barriers to expanding adaptive sports and fitness. Another benefit of the micro-grant process is that all of the creative process will be outsourced to an exponentially greater workforce. This allows the search for new ideas to become streamlined, rather than something that takes a significant portion of Oak Hill’s own time and resources.
‘Train-the-Trainer’ Program
Upon completion of our data collection, we noticed that a significant portion of the positive response organizations felt amicable to receiving specialized training from Oak Hill’s own trainers and staff. One opportunity to capitalize on this is to develop or modify a training course that can be given by Oak Hill to trainers at other facilities. This training course would use the skills and knowledge which staff at Oak Hill have in abundance and present it in an organized, understandable, and profitable manner for those who seek to increase their ability to serve clients with disabilities. These programs could take place in gyms and fitness facilities, for youth sports coaches, and for nursing home employees.
The primary objective for this approach is to compartmentalize the skills, experience, and knowledge at Oak Hill in a way that is accessible to would-be promoters of adaptive fitness. It would be essential to have a thorough plan of assessment and of learning objectives put forth by staff members and trainers. This could be an established plan which staff members themselves have been certified to teach, or it could be an entirely new program compiled by staff members based on prior learnings and modifications to other programs.
The main reasons why many institutions which we made positive contact with in our study wanted to receive specialized training was so that they could better serve their clients, but also so they could increase their marketing capabilities. These are also reasons which Oak Hill will benefit from: by training others to provide essential services to people living with disabilities, they will have improved access to adaptive sports and fitness for all, and they will receive massive recognition as an organization which enables those positive changes. Since Oak Hill is responsible for the dissemination of these skills and knowledge, they will receive plaudits, credit and renown for the entire process. This will further shift them towards an identity as an industry leader and a powerful ally.
Transportation
As discussed in the literature review, it is evident that a massive barrier to participation of individuals with disabilities in the local community is the lack of adequate transportation. Considering the physical and legal restrictions to driving with certain disabilities, it would be prudent to consider the advent of a transportation service to Oak Hill. Moreover, this individualized transportation is of particular use if the facility considers opportunities to work with nursing homes, where most residents lack the personal agency or the vehicular capabilities to travel beyond their place of residence.
The privatization of the service is in particular response to the concern of scheduling of public transportation and accessibility to paratransit; rather obviously, if an individual has no means to get to a facility, they will not be able to make use of its services. Based both on existing literature, lack of independence is a massive concern among this demographic, and therefore to provide some semblance of independent mobility, it would be absolutely necessary to support private transportation. This transportation may include minimal busing or ridesharing supported by Oak Hill. It is necessary to clarify that ridesharing should be supported by the facility directly due to the high costs of ridesharing apps which may conversely deter clients from using the facility. Through Oak-Hill-specific ridesharing or busing, these costs can either be included in the fitness session or billed separately, but ideally should not exceed the cost of ridesharing apps such as Uber of Lyft.