Photo by Cándido Castañón Hernández
A team of observers used the Principle of Meaningful Involvement (POMI) app on tablets to track the level of meaningful involvement on each Unified floorball team. This helped ensure that all players – with or without a disability – had the same opportunity to participate equally in the game.
If you had the chance to take in the Unified floorball competition at our recent World Winter Games, you may have noticed something interesting: A group of concentrated officials keenly observing the action from the sidelines while also absorbed in their tablets. Bernie Schütze, the leader of these observers, explains the pioneering new project that they were involved in, which was run for the first time at a World Winter Games. The project – which was implemented during the floorball competition from 11 to 15 March in the Inalpi Arena, Turin – uses cutting edge technology to encourage all Unified teams to rigorously adhere to the Principle of ‘Meaningful Involvement’.
Unified Sports joins people with and without intellectual disabilities on the same team. It was inspired by a simple principle: training together and playing together is a path to friendship and understanding.
Bernie, who is based in Berlin, Germany, was leading the eleven international observers who travelled to the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Turin with the express purpose of making the Unified floorball competition as fair and inclusive as possible. For Bernie and the team, Unified is not just an abstract notion, it’s a measurable target.
Bernie begins, “Our aim was to observe if the teams are abiding by the Principle of Meaningful Involvement. That means that all players with or without disability must have the same chances of participating equally in the game.”
He continues, “Through the POMI App [used on tablets], the observers tracked the statistics of the games, for example the shots and passes of each player, and also the engagement. Here, we looked at their effort or their ability, for example. Based on these statistics, the Unified Sports Delegate (USD) -which is myself in this case- educates and sanctions the team.”
Before any team is sanctioned, the USD engages in a dialogue with the coach. This is crucial as it helps to educate the coach, and in turn the athletes, about the type of meaningful involvement that allows a team to truly earn the title ‘Unified’.
Photo by Cándido Castañón Hernández
Bernie says, “The observers’ communication with the coaches is extremely important before sanctioning behaviour. Often you do not know the full story from just observing. You have to take the time to start a dialogue with the coaches and teams.”
Although Bernie has been involved in Special Olympics for over five years – as a full-time national coach for team sports, a head coach in futsal at World Games and a USD for Unified floorball– his time as an observer and using the POMI app in Turin has given him new insights. He says, “This experience has opened my eyes to the complexity of the game of floorball and all the factors that go into being a good Unified team. It’s clear that many teams are trying to live by the Principle of Meaningful Involvement. They love to give their best and including the whole team in the process. This is a very motivating aspect of observing.
For Bernie and the team of observers, this is just the beginning of their quest for 100% ‘meaningful involvement’ in all teams, in all Unified Sports, in all competitions. Bernie concludes, “This will be extended to a lot of other sports to make Unified competitions as fair and inclusive as possible.”
Leave a Reply