Parkour UK

You may know that we are supporters of CIMSPA –  the chartered professional body for the sport and physical activity sector. CIMSPA are committed to supporting, developing and enabling professionals and organisations within our sector to succeed and, as a result, inspire our nation to become more active.

Right now, CIMSPA, working with independent consultants, is asking frontline sport and physical professionals to be part of an important consultation with the goal of ensuring our profession is trusted and valued by our customers and communities.

They have a survey open at the moment to capture your views and we would encourage you to take part in this.

The survey covers:

• What you think are the challenges facing sector professionals.
• Who you think should be responsible for checking we are qualified and competent to work with the public.
• What you think about the idea of a national register for those in the sector who are trusted sport and physical activity professionals.

This is your chance to influence how working in sport and physical activity continues to grow as a recognised and respected profession – valued and trusted by the customers and communities we work with.

Thank you for your help – the survey is completely anonymous, takes about 5 minutes to complete and will be open until Friday 26 April. Please also share with your colleagues.

Take the survey here

Parkour UK have partnered with the Centre for Sports and Exercise and Medicine, Queen Mary University of London to explore why people take part in Parkour/Freerunning and the impact of injury among Parkour/Freerunning athletes.

As Parkour/Freerunning is a relatively new and rapidly expanding sport, at the moment there is very little currently known about the demographics and injury profiles of Parkour/Freerunning participants.

For these reasons we have decided to partner with Queen Mary University of London to explore this area of research, and for that we need your help.

We would like to invite our member organisations, our workforce and traceurs/traceuses/freeruners to complete an online survey which will take no more than 30 minutes to complete.

You will be asked simple questions about your involvement in Parkour/Freerunning, as well your sporting history, your motivation and commitment to Parkour/Freerunning, if you have had any injuries as a result of participating in Parkour/Freerunning and the impact these injuries may have had on you and your ability to take part in Parkour/Freerunning.

There has never been a better time to positively impact the continued growth and development of Parkour/Freerunning across the UK.  Therefore, we are really are encouraging everyone within the Parkour/Freerunning community, our member organisations and workforce to positively engage with, support and share this survey.

We are seeking a wide range of views and feedback to help us positive shape and inform this piece of reserach.

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Parkour UK, today on the second anniversary of the formal announcement of the recognition of Parkour/Freerunning as a sport and Parkour UK as the recognised National Governing Body (NGB) for the sport, launch Public & Community Survey’s to help shape and inform the development of our strategic plan.

Following a funding award from Sport England in 2018, we have appointed 4Global following a tender process to undertake a strategic review of Parkour UK and develop a Strategic Plan which clearly outlines the vision, mission, objectives and strategic priorities for Parkour UK and our sport in the UK – outlining how the sport can grow and commercialise.

As part of the development of our new strategic plan for Parkour UK & our sport, in partnership with 4Global we have developed Public & Community Survey’s to help shape and inform the development of our strategic plan.

The survey’s are split into two main groups:

• Public
• Community

General Public Survey

Target: General public – ideally those that aren’t current actively involved in the Parkour/Freerunning community

Community Survey’s

• Practitioners

Target: Any practitioner or traceur/traceuse. Anyone actively involved in the Parkour/Freerunning community

• Member Organisations

Target: Parkour UK member organisations. This can be completed a maximum of three times for each member organisation (by 3 separate people)

• Workforce

Target: Parkour UK registered workforce (Activators, Assistant Coaches, Coaches & Professional Performers) 

There has never been a better time to positively impact the continued growth and development of Parkour/Freerunning across the UK.  Therefore, we are really are encouraging everyone within the Parkour/Freerunning community, our member organisations and workforce to positively engage with, support and share these survey’s. We are seeking a wide range of views and feedback to help us positive shape and inform the development of our strategic plan.

#GiveParkourAGo

Parkour UK has appointed Kasturi Torchia as our first Mental Health Lead.

Kasturi Torchia is an awarded psychotherapist in the final stage of her Professional Doctorate in Counselling Psychology. Specialising in lack of progression within Parkour, she has spent the last four years working within the community growing a psycho-therapeutic approach to teaching our discipline via our Esprit Concrete, working very closely with our Mental Health Action Group to better integrate mental health awareness and working process into our governance and provision of our sport. With experience in service evaluation, research and practice she is passionately working to further develop Parkour UK’s Mental Health Hub along side our newly appointed Chief Medical Officer, Dr Timothy Yu to build a solid foundation for audit, assessment and intervention delivery tailored to mental health and well being for everyone that Parkour UK strives to represent. 

Kasturi Torchia will work with Dr Timothy Yu and our CEO to develop the existing needs of our community and anticipate future needs proactively.

Katuri Torchia You can be contacted via kasturi.torchia@parkour.uk 

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Sport Wales recently released the figures and infographics for the 2018 School Sport Survey. You can view the full data tables on their Statistics pages. These include Parkour/Freerunning participation figures. 

The results show that the increase seen from 2011 to 2015 in previous surveys has been sustained, with 48% of young people taking part in sport 3 or more times a week in addition to timetabled PE lessons.

2018 figures also suggest a close in the participation gap for some of the harder to reach groups.

The survey showed the sports most likely to be participated in by primary pupils other than in school or community club settings. 

For those in years 3-6, it showed that 25% of males & 29% of ‘other’* were likely to have participated in Parkour/Freerunning in a school or community club settings (this is Wales only) 

For those in years 7-11, it showed that 20% of ‘other’* were likely to have participated in Parkour/Freerunning in a school or community club settings (this is Wales only)

*Sport Wales have changed the categories on gender this year so that respondents can tick “male”, “female”, “prefer not to say” or “other”. Unfortunately, this means that gender based results are not directly comparable to previous year’s.

Other headline findings include:

• 45% of children with a disability or impairment are now taking part in sport 3 or more times a week (in addition to timetabled PE lessons), up from 40% in 2015.  The figure shows an even greater increase when responses from Special Educational Needs schools are added in, taking the figure up to 47%.
• The lowest participating ethnic minority group, Asian British has increased regular participants from 36% to 40% bringing them closer to the national average.
• Meanwhile there looks to be a more stubborn gap between the most and least deprived, with 42% of children from the most deprived households taking part 3 or more times a week (in addition to timetabled PE lessons), down from 43%in 2015. 
• In 2018, 46% of girls are taking part in sport 3 or more times a week in comparison to 50% of boys. In 2015, 44% of girls and 52% of boys stated that they regularly took part. Although direct comparisons cannot be made due to the new question dynamic, the figures suggest a potential close in the gender gap.
• 39% of those responding as ‘other’ have stated that they take part 3 or more times a week.

The data certainly demonstrates the reach, breadth and depth of Parkour/Freerunning, not just in Wales, but across the UK and our community.

We certainly feel that Parkour UK and our community have plenty to contribute to the strategic plan of Sport Wales. In addition to the Government strategy #SportingFuture, coordinated by Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the strategic plans of Sport England, sportscotland & Sport Northern Ireland

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