An Aberdeen para-swimming champion has backed a new campaign encouraging children with disabilities to take to the water.
Toni Shaw took home six medals at this year’s World Para Swimming World Championships and now has her sights set on qualifying for the Japan 2020 Paralympics.
The Albyn School fifth year pupil is now hoping her success can inspire the next generation to follow in her footsteps.
Yesterday she helped Scottish Swimming launch its #SeeMyAbility campaign, which is aimed at including more youngsters with a disability into mainstream coaching programmes.
The scheme will encourage parents to talk more openly about their child’s disability and consider enrolling them for swimming lessons, while teachers will be given a “toolkit” to help them adapt their lessons and make them suitable for all.
Toni, an ambassador for the campaign, said: “I think it’s really important that everyone learns to swim, and learns to swim together.
“Including everybody in the same lessons means they can learn to swim in the best way they can.”
After learning to swim, Toni joined the Cults Otters and is now part of the Aberdeen University Performance Swim squad.
“I just joined normal lessons,” she said.
“I really enjoyed it and didn’t struggle, then they saw how much I loved to swim and recommended I join a club.
“When I was younger I didn’t see any difference, I just saw that I was the same as everybody else learning to swim.
“Now I’m older, I see how lucky I was that my parents put me in there with everybody else.
“It’s great to know there are things to everybody can learn to swim the same way I did.”
Paul Wilson, the disability performance development manager for Scottish Swimming, said: “We want to work with local aquatic providers to make sure there are opportunities for kids to go from a ‘come and try’ festival to a learn to swim programme.
“It’s not anything different, it’s just about how they adapt and change their sessions to be more inclusive.
“That’s about what’s right for the individual. If they have a more severe impairment then one-to-one lessons might be the right thing for them, but it’s about maximising what the right environment is for the child.”
“More than 50% of our clubs are inclusive, and we want to make more provision so, for all these kids we’re finding at a younger level, there are opportunities for them as they progress through the sport.”
