How Sensory Walks helped Kelsey grow in confidence
Kelsey, 27, lives at home with her mum, Paula, in Rochdale. Kelsey never misses a Sensory multi-sport session, where she excels at basketball, and loves to attend our fortnightly Sensory Walks.
We provide these activities alongside Your Trust and, through our Sport England Active Lifestyles funding, have supported their inclusion team to become more confident deliverers for Kelsey and her peers. This includes attending our Sensory Walks and Sensory Sport training workshops, as well as covering the costs for local activities.
This National Walking Month, her mum Paula shares how getting outdoors has helped Kelsey grow in confidence and become more independent.
Kelsey and Paula
I asked Kelsey to describe herself in three words; she chose:
- Happy
- Kind
- Cheerful
She has always been a person who cares and wants to make everyone happy.
Noticing a change
Kelsey’s really come on since she joined the Your Trust and Sense activity groups. You can see how much more independent she is; she’s making friends with everyone, and she’s caring. She’ll go over to people, knowing – say they are in a wheelchair, and she’s putting a hand on their shoulders to check they’re OK.
She’s come a long way in that respect. At one point, when we first started, she was stuck to my side. She wouldn’t go anywhere. Where now she’s like, “Come on, come on, get in there.” She’ll now just happily go in and meet everyone.
Since Kelsey left college, we had nothing, we had nothing at all. And Kelsey was obviously just with me all the time.
We went to one session … and we’ve just been going ever since. Going on 2 years now! It’s very rare that we would even miss one session. Kelsey just loves it. She sets her heart on this.
The difference maker
I have to shout out to Fathema from Your Trust.
She’s one of the main people who supports Kelsey when we go, and she makes everything fun.
As soon as Kelsey arrives, Fathema springs into action, “Come on, Kelsey, let’s do this, let’s do that.” It gets Kelsey moving and makes everything fun.
She has done absolutely brilliantly. I couldn’t thank her enough, to be honest. To gain Kelsey’s trust is a big thing, so thank you to each and every one of them because without them, we wouldn’t have the support that we need.
Sensory Walks
Kelsey loves Sensory Walks because she gets to be with everyone, making connections and friendships. What we’re doing is getting her to exercise, and it’s all based on fun. We’re able to get Kelsey moving without her understanding that she is exercising.
When she was younger, she used a wheelchair, and that progressed to using a frame to walk, and then we eventually got her walking without any aids, with a lot of physio. We’ve just got to be careful when she’s going down steps and things like that. But apart from that, she’s able.
So now she’s able to go for a walk, and she loves it. She’s enjoying it and making friends, without realising how much exercise she is actually doing. There’s always a method in our madness!
The walks have such a friendly atmosphere, and she is happy all the time – we are with a good group where everything’s made fun for the people who go there.
We just really enjoy it. It’s what we look forward to. So now, even though we have these groups, we’ve made friendships where we’ll meet up on our own.
My message to other parents
We are a team, Kelsey and I, and I know that she’s comfortable now. I could happily go to these sessions and leave knowing that she’s in trusted hands, and it’s just amazing.
They do such a good job of looking after them. And they do quite a lot of different sports as well, not just Sensory Walks. She’s done sports like badminton and basketball. Kelsey is actually amazing at basketball now.
To other parents, you only need to make that first step and find the right community, because it does make such a difference.