Wednesday 29th August 2007
I had heard about IFI several years ago when I was in a previous job but had never really looked into it too much at the time. Back then I knew that it involved some kind of funding for fitness equipment but that was about it.
Several years on and now Head of Sports Facilities at Edge Hill University I am half way through the process of becoming IFI accredited at Sporting Edge, the university’s sports complex.
In early 2006 I heard that the IFI was rolling out another funding programme, this time targeting the private sector, rather than local authorities, so I decided to have a proper look at IFI this time. To be honest my initial thoughts were that this could be an opportunity to simply get some funding to update some of my equipment in the fitness suite, but I soon found out that there was much more to it than that.
I attended a seminar in July 2006 that outlined what the new IFI programme included and the things that were needed to become accredited. It is much more than a few new pieces of equipment!! However, I left the seminar with the belief that this would be a good thing to pursue, both for the increasing number of disabled students at Edge Hill and the existing ( and potentially new ) external members of the sports centre. Edge Hill has always been keen to promote the fact that it is an accessible place to visit and study, with an ‘inclusive’ service available, so what better way to show this to the outside world than to achieve a nationally recognised standard.
Having received initial approval to go ahead from Directorate, who also deemed it to be a good thing to pursue, I signed the ‘In Principle Commitment form’ that registered Edge Hill’s interest in taking part in the scheme. I had to e-mail through copies of existing documents, policies and procedures such as promotional leaflets, marketing plans, facility checklists, evacuation plans etc to help meet certain criteria and gathered together what I thought was an impressive list of documents. How wrong I was!
Once I had started the ball rolling I was keen to get things moving but had to wait what seemed like an age until April 2007 before I had my access audit. This involved the lovely Becky and Emma from IFI visiting and conducting a survey around all the facilities. After an quick trip round the site with me they spent the next 1 ½ hours going round the site again with tape measures, light meters and all sorts of other measuring gadgets. They didn’t want me to accompany them which was bit frustrating as I’m sure that I could have helped, but had to wait until afterwards for the feedback.
At this feedback meeting I was desperate to know how we had done and was busy trying to write things down as they spoke, not really realising that it would all come through in a detailed report a few weeks later. My initial thoughts from the process up to this point was that we could easily meet level 2 accreditation or possibly even level 3 ( There are 3 levels depending on the degree of adaptations that are made ) – how much more did we need to do?
I wanted to crack on and get things moving but had to wait another 4 weeks until the report came. This report was over 70 pages long and I realised that it was actually going to involve a lot of work to reach even level 2. With the Sporting Edge complex being only 10 years old and designed with many disabled features already, I thought that the amount of work would be minimal, but I found that 10 years is a long time in relation to the DDA and compliance, and things have moved on. For example, my disabled car parking bays were not wide enough and had to be widened, the disabled lift didn’t have an alarm in it, the disabled toilet had the flush on the wrong side, not enough grab handles and no colour contrasting against the walls, internal signage was not the right style…….. and the list went on.
The report was very clear and under each section outlined where we are now and what changes would be needed to reach levels 1, 2 or 3, obviously each one requiring progressively more adaptations and greater compliance.
So having had the report I set to work deciding what level was realistic. I really wanted to go in at level 3 ( ‘excellent’ level ) but realised that this would require a lot of investment. I decided that I would make as many of the lower cost changes that were recommended for level 3 as I could to make things easier next time round, but realised that realistically it was likely to be level 2 or even 1 that we would come in at in the end.
At time of writing we are 3 months in to the time allowed to complete the action plan. I have met with the estates team on site who were tasked with looking into the physical adaptations required but not many things on the list have been done yet. There are different priorities on campus, especially during the summer, and this is lower down on the list. I have to admit it is quite exciting each time one of the jobs is completed as I can tick it off the ‘to do’ list, such as when our disabled bays were re-marked and extended recently. Hopefully most of the physical changes will be completed by the time the students come back in late September.
New fitness equipment has been ordered with installation due in September. I was already in the process of upgrading my Life Fitness CV equipment anyway so this fitted in nicely but my existing resistance equipment, although still perfectly good, was not IFI accredited so I needed to buy some new machines. In the early stages I thought that I would only be able to afford the basic minimum but was surprised to get some very reasonable quotes which meant that I have gone for the minimum number of machines that level 3 requires, and am buying 6 new resistance machines from Pulse Fitness as they offered the best price and their whole range of resistance machines had been adapted.
I am looking at my marketing materials and looking at creating copies in large print, audio and Braille, making my website more accessible and writing some new policies. I have a signage contractor visiting soon and am waiting for dates for the free disability equality training courses for staff.
I have found that going through the IFI process requires much more than making a few changes to make the centre more accessible. It requires a change in your whole attitude to the service that you are offering. My first thought now about anything that we are doing is whether it is ‘inclusive’ and whether it caters for the disabled, and this will eventually spread through the whole operation of the sports complex, not just the elements required for IFI accreditation.
It is still early days and we are not there yet but I would estimate that this process will eventually have taken around 18 months and cost Edge Hill over £20,000 – much more than the £8,500 that you must commit to in the first place. The big costs for me are the new fitness equipment and things like installing induction loops and visual evacuation alarms, but a lot of the work is minor and can be done in-house by the university maintenance team. Obviously every site will be different as the amount of work will vary but in the end it is quite a commitment – but one that I think is worth it in the end.
