Tag Archive for 'Calcio Integrato'

Football as inclusion tool

For a long time, the involvement and full realization of people with disabilities, considered the largest minority in the world, have been an international research and development priority. Thanks in part to specific studies, an awareness has developed that sports and, more generally, motor activity are a decisive tool for promoting their psychosocial and motor development. From this perspective, people with disabilities are no longer considered people to be helped, but citizens to be granted rights and choices. Developing motor and sports activity in children with physical or intellectual disabilities thus makes it possible to reverse their predominantly sedentary condition, achieving great benefits at the physical level, in cognitive processes, in affective life and in their relationships with peers and adults. The little research conducted so far shows that, at the motor level, children with disabilities are much less active than their typically developing peers and that the percentage of sedentary individuals increases as they get older. Despite the evidence and despite the fact that sports turn out to be an effective support to the therapies in which they are involved, the spread of motor activity programs dedicated to them is still marginal.

The “Football Together” project

Soccer is the most loved and practiced sport for girls and boys all over the world, but for young people with intellectual disabilities, opportunities to experience it as a normal educational and playing experience are rare, if not completely absent. This situation results in a glaring gap in access to sports: a vital resource, as established by the Declaration of Human Rights. In light of the fundamental role that sporting activity plays in the physical and behavioral development of young children, especially when practiced in teams, the phenomenon emerges as a critical factor of social exclusion, particularly if we consider the magnitude of this juncture: the practice of sports for young people with intellectual disabilities is still little widespread and studied, not only in Italy but worldwide. Most experiences concern specific motor activities such as running and water activities: on the other hand, there is no similar practice in the area of team games and within soccer clubs. Indeed, there is a widespread belief that young people with intellectual disabilities struggle to relate to others and to be part of a team. For this reason, so far, individual sports have been favored.

With the aim of changing this perspective, in 2015 AS Roma launched, in collaboration with the Integrated Football Academy, the “Calcio Insieme” project, aimed at affirming the right of boys and girls with intellectual disabilities to experience sports as a moment of psychological, social and motor growth, just like their peers. These days we have reached the end of the seventh year of activity.

An activity to be planned and carried out safely and professionally

The success of such a project depends on many factors: the competence of the staff, the specificity of the educational program, the involvement of schools and families, and the proper evaluation of the motor and psychological condition at the beginning and end of each year of training. This methodological approach overcomes the idea that offering them the opportunity to practice a sport is in itself a sufficient measure. Approaches of this kind, combined with the lack of expertise of the practitioners, have prevented the improvement of the sports proposal and the comparison of sports experiences of this kind with each other.

In order to develop a project aware of the risks in terms of safety and health of participants and meet the needs of the children and their families, AS Roma and the Academy of Integrated Football formed a staff composed exclusively of graduates in motor sciences, some already Roma instructors, sports psychologists, a speech therapist, a doctor, a person responsible for relations with families and schools, a scientific director, a technical director of A.S. Roma and a person responsible for the project and institutional relations. All participated in a training course to learn about the profiles of intellectual disability and to define the sports activity program and evaluation criteria. Initially the project involved 30 boys and girls aged 6 to 12, but later the number grew to 80 young people aged 6 to 18, divided into groups according to their functional abilities. Among them, 20 children with problems such as no speech, extreme difficulty interacting with new people and situations, severe motor difficulties and oppositional behavior have a dedicated instructor or psychologist, while for the others, groups have been organized.

The results of a scientific approach

Studies conducted on program outcomes and published in scientific journals show significant improvement in basic motor skills such as walking, running, rolling, jumping up, catching a ball, and balancing. From a psychosocial point of view, at the end of the first year, young people with improved functional conditions demonstrated the ability to play with instructors and peers, to complete activities, and to be substantially active throughout each training session. Children with more severe problems also improved but showed greater difficulty in completing drills. They have learned to kick the ball and recognize the goal, but many of them need to have the technician or psychologist next to them at all times and can sometimes have crises that prevent them from continuing the activity.

The results achieved by the staff are evidenced by the integrated training sessions with the boys and girls of the A.S. Roma soccer school and the five-a-side soccer matches, with each of the two teams consisting of three boys with disabilities and two with typical development. These experiences are a time of great satisfaction not only for the young people involved but also for the staff, parents and the boys of the Soccer School.

Important results in terms of the development of motor and psychological skills have also come from the summer camps and the “Cub Scouts Grow Up” group, which includes boys and girls aged 13-18 with the potential to play five-a-side soccer matches and participate in youth tournaments for young people with intellectual disabilities.

“Summer Together”: soccer for young with intellectual disability

“Summer Together” camp has begun, promoted by Roma Cares in collaboration with Accademia Calcio Integrato with youth ages 6-18 with intellectual disabilities playing soccer. Second day, the boys and girls arrive at the camp and start playing in the big pitch. Peaceful environment, they shoot on goal. This happens while waiting for the other teammates to arrive. Then we listen and sing the Italian anthem all together.

Training begins with coordination exercises with the ball, divided into two groups of 5. There are 3 AS Roma coaches following them, providing technical instructions and encouraging them to keep up the pace of the exercise.

Different sized shots on goal on stations, rotating every few minutes.

These are young people who have been training with us for a long time, some for 6 years others for 4. The summer camp is 5 hours on 5 days per week (the global group in three weeks will be of 90 young). The group of 10 I’m talking about is made up of young people with intellectual disabilities with good motor functioning even though some have difficulty running, some would mostly walk and run a few steps, and some are very fast. Some need more than others to alternate minutes of activity with a break (in any case it is very hot here in Rome).

For the latter, having many hours available to train is important, since in this way they have the opportunity to train for an overall long period of time, while during the weekly training sessions, stopping for 20 minutes means losing almost 40% of the training time, which is 50 minutes.

Of course there are also moments of tension, some boys show restlessness, someone else argues with a teammate, someone responds impulsively or takes offense because they do not pass the ball, others get tired and are prone to isolation.

These difficulties can be resolved with the patience of the coaches who understand these problems, but above all thanks to the fact that the game continues and these episodes do not disturb those who play. In this sense the continuity of the activity is a stimulus to those who leave to return to play. This is because, in any case, the objective is to maintain a positive and pleasant atmosphere that, in the end, outweighs any difficulties encountered.

With an image we can say that the river flows, when a boy/girl lives a more critical moment, its flowing helps to solve individual problems because the collective continues the activity, so everything flows and then you get to the sea where everything ends.

Coaches carry out their leadership role with understanding and closeness but in a firm manner. This attitude of theirs is the essential cornerstone for which everything flows, despite the fact that we are coaching young people with intellectual disabilities.

A lot of work is done to bring value to coaching. This is the reason why listening to and singing together the Italian anthem and before the final match the Champions League anthem are moments that precede significant moments of the training. It’s obvious, finally, that wearing the AS Roma uniform is another unifying factor, a way for these young athletes to feel proud and part of something that in their perception is immense.
In the next few days I will tell you about the experience of other young people who participate at “Estate Insieme”.

#IncludeUsFromTheStart

Sport must be more and more an opportunity to integrate the differences.The Integrated Soccer Academy offers together with AS Roma  a path of integration through football of girls and children, 6-12 years old.

The world day dedicated to people with Down syndrome must do reflect on how far we are to do achieve the goal of integration.

Soccer School for children with intellectual disabilities

«AS Roma is pleased to announce that, since January 2016, the Club promotes and supports the “Calcio Insieme”, a program born from the collaboration between the Fondazione Roma Cares e l’Associazione dilettantistica “Calcio integrato” the training pitch of Italian Olympic Center “Giulio Onesti” were made available at boys and girls, aged between six and twelve years old, suffering from intellectual disabilities of various levels, supported by a pool of doctors, speech therapists and instructors.
The goals are the development of the physical and psychosocial well-being of children, the reduction of stress related to their living conditions, to increase their self-assessment skills and the motivation to motor activity.
A technical team of AS Roma, with sport psychologists, has developed specific educational methodologies to create a safe, comfortable and never boring environment.
Among the results expected, there is the development of the culture of integration  and the education to the values ​​of sport through the soccer.
“Roma is a great social platform, and we are conscious of the responsibility that comes – says the AS Roma general manager, Mauro Baldissoni -. I hope this is one of the many experiments that we will put up in action. Sport has always been an aggregator and along a motivational tool to go over the limits. Have on the pitch children with intellectual disabilities  is a chance for them to improve.”
The instructors were joined by a medical team, coordinated by Professor Alberto Cei, scientific director of “Calcio Insieme”, looking closely the progress of these young athletes, looking for improvements in the movement coordination, in their self-awareness or more simply in daily life.
“Soccer can be a vital tool to help children with mental disabilities to develop yourself – explains Patrizia Minocchi, president of ASD Calcio Integrato-. This magical tool, the ball, has already yielded the first results, the children are learning to relate with the others.”»