The Gwent Dolphins are a Halliwick swimming club that meets at Fairwater Leisure Centre without fail every Tuesday evening at 8.00pm - 9.00pm. The club uses the Association of Swimming Therapy method of teaching swimming, for over half a century people with disabilities have been experiencing freedom in water learning through using the Halliwick concept. The development of this concept led to the formation of the Halliwick Association of Swimming Therapy of which the dolphins are affiliated members of.
The club participates in local galas within region 15 and regularly hosts their own galas each year. The Dolphins have also represented the region at National Galas where they have returned as National Champions.
The club is always looking for new members and helpers and it was for this reason both the Torfaen Swim Development Officer and the Disability Sport Wales Development Officer are working with the Gwent Dolphins to develop the club further widening the opportunities the club offers from Halliwick opportunities, expanding to Paralympic opportunities. This will allow people with a disability to take up swimming/ sport for life for social and competitive reasons.
Through the partnership work with the Swim Development Officer, Disability Sport Wales Development and Swim Active sponsored by Kellogg’s the club has developed links with the Torfaen learn to swim programme and surrounding authority learn to swim programmes through a swimming festival.
The festival was staffed by both the learn to swim teachers and the Gwent Dolphins staff, the day was based around fun swimming skills and games and was tailored to the individual. Fairwater Leisure centres pool was sectioned off and participants were ability banded, the shallow end being for those with high support needs, needing one to one support and the deep end for those who could take direction from swimming coaches and of course swim, this worked brilliantly allowing everyone to enjoy the day and get the most out of it.
The aim of the festival was to market the Dolphins to the general public, hopefully recruiting some of the learn to swim participants into the club and inspiring some of the Gwent Dolphin coaches to develop themselves further and become swim Wales level1 coaches, which in turn would allow the club to offer Paralympic opportunities, widening the scope of opportunities for the residence of Torfaen.
Following on from the festival:
Ø Two of the Gwent Dolphins staff are registering to go on to the Swim Wales level one.
Ø One of the coaches is going to buddy up with the "learn to swim" teacher and develop a direct link to the Dolphins.
Ø Two of the siblings from the learn to swim programme have registered to go on the learn to swim programme with Torfaen
Ø Two of the learn to swim participants have joined the Gwent Dolphins
Ø The club is applying for a community chest to purchase the equipment they would need to effectively run Paralympic opportunity sessions and to help them send the coaches on the level 1 course.
This initiative had evolved from the Local Authority Partnership Agreement which gave us the opportunity to offer the club incentives to develop the club in a way that would be both beneficial for us as a authority and most importantly for the Gwent Dolphins.
