F6IT is a registered Charitable Incorporated Organisation
F6IT is an accessible and inclusive project in the local community delivering support, fitness, clubs and leisure activities for children and young people with disabilities and additional needs, so that they are able to participate and enjoy activities alongside their families and friends within their community.
This is inspired by the work done by, Dr. Rosenbaum and Dr. Gorter in a paper published in 2011 titled:
"The 'F-words' in Childhood Disability: I swear this is how we should think!" and is built upon the World Health Organizations (WHO's) International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) framework.
‘I
nspired by over two decades of CanChild
research and continual discussion amongst members of the CanChild
family, the paper features six F-words that the authors state should be the focus in childhood disability - Functioning, Family, Fitness, Fun, Friends, and Future. The F-words focus on six key areas of child development. Recognizing that no one factor is more important than another, we hope to encourage people in the childhood disability field to adopt this way of thinking and apply these concepts in their work with children with disabilities and their families.." [
https://www.canchild.ca/en/research-in-practice/f-words-in-childhood-disability]
F6IT aims to bring these 6 key areas to life through the projects it offers in the local community.
We are passionate to model true inclusion, by enabling all children with disabilities and additional needs to participate in community activities alongside their family and friends.
THERAPY is a link to therapies such as Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech, Language Therapy and Psychotherapy that are often helping children with disabilities and additional needs in the background to achieve optimal participation in their communities.
Anel is a children’s physiotherapist and has over 25 years’ experience of working with children with a wide variety of disabilities and additional needs.
Through her work as a physiotherapist, she became aware of the lack of availability and accessibility of activities and support for children with disabilities and additional needs and their families in the local community.
In 2017-2018 Anel consulted various families that have children with disabilities and additional needs, this inspired her to create a project to address the wider need of this community.
Anel is passionate in serving this community and is determined to make a change in the lives of families with children with disabilities and additional needs in our local community.
Anel champions true inclusion and wants to ensure that children/young people of ALL abilities can access activities in the community alongside their family and friends.
In her spare time, Anel loves spending time with her husband and two girls, exploring the beautiful countryside, paddleboarding and staying active.
Rachel is a British Paralympic sportswoman who has won Paralympic gold medals in both cycling and rowing.
Rachel was awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to rowing.
From 2013 to 2019 Rachel had a key role in setting up and running an annual sports day, ‘Surrey Para Games’, for SEND children in Surrey, in partnership with Active Surrey and Stepping Stones School.
Since her retirement as an elite athlete in 2020 she has been involved in consultation work championing inclusion, accessibility and fitness for children disabilities and additional needs.
Rachel has extensive experience in personal training and mental health coaching.
Rachel is a qualified Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) Practitioner, Life Coach, Rational Emotional Behaviour Therapist (REBT), Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), Sports Coach and she has a diploma in Bespoke Mentoring.
Rachel joined F6IT as one of the Directors in January 2023. She is passionate about enabling all children/young people to access sport, clubs and recreational activities alongside their peers, in their local community.
Rachel hopes to see children/young people with disabilities, additional and complex needs reach their full potential by upskilling clubs/organisations in the local community to enable participation in grass roots sports and activities alongside their peers, whilst also having specialist provision to allow safe/needs-specific activities and the development of skills and pathways into parasports.
In her spare time Rachel loves The Great Outdoors, wild camping and swimming and time exploring ‘off grid’ with her Labradors, Wispa and Nero.
Sophie is a children’s physiotherapist and has over 15 years’ experience in working with children and adults with disabilities and additional needs.
Through her work as a physiotherapist, particularly through involvement with hydrotherapy, rebound therapy, power chair football and adaptive skiing, she became more aware of how much enjoyment and motivation the children/young people got from accessing these physical activities.
Sophie believes that children/young people, whatever their ability, should be able to access physical activities for recreational enjoyment and/or competitively. Recently, she has been involved with supporting the Beacon Hill Flames Frame Football sessions for children with Cerebral Palsy and loves seeing how much the children have developed not only in their physical skills, but social confidence and making great friendships through sport.
In her spare time, Sophie enjoys spending time with her family, she is one of 7 siblings and has young nieces and nephews who keep her pretty busy. Sophie regularly attends Yoga and Pilates classes to keep active but also enjoys the mental health benefits of exercising. She ran and completed the London marathon in 2019!
