There was success for the School’s staff and students at the recent University of Lincoln Merit Awards, with well-deserved recognition for their contributions to health and wellbeing in the University and wider local community.

The Sports Therapy Clinics – which are delivered by BSc Sport & Exercise Therapy and MSc Sports Therapy students with staff supervision – won the Best Promotion on Wellbeing award for their contribution to the general physical and mental wellbeing of both University staff and students.

Ines Caetano, Sport Science Technician with special responsibility for sports therapy, explained how these clinics complement students’ programmes: “Our students benefit greatly from the Sports Therapy Clinics we provide, which give them the chance to get practical experience throughout their degree. The clinics allow them to learn crucial sports therapy and communication skills, which are beneficial for their development as future practitioners, and they also contribute to the 200 placement hours required to obtain their degree. In these clinics, students are able to begin their placements in a supervised and controlled setting, which will give them the confidence to subsequently look for external placements.

Thank you to everyone who has attended our clinics because by doing so, you are supporting our students.”

Congratulations to all of the students who have participated in the delivery of the clinics and thank you also to all the staff who have contributed to their high quality and smooth operation.

(University of Lincoln staff and students can find out more about the clinics, and how to make a booking, here.)

Some of the many students who have contributed to the clinics, in the Sports Therapy facility where the clinics are run.

Congratulations also to Associate Professor Hannah Henderson who, alongside other colleagues from around the University, was highly commended for her contribution to Community Engagement.

In 2018 Active Lincolnshire created a blueprint strategy to initiate Let’s Move Lincolnshire, a project that aimed to better connect community physical activity access and opportunity. This blueprint, however, needed revising and refreshing in the light of the global pandemic, increased inequality, and the ‘levelling up’ agenda.

An innovative collaborative approach was taken to meet this brief by empowering seven postgraduate students from across three business degrees to be involved in the data collection and production stage of the process. Furthermore, a cross-disciplinary approach was taken whereby Sally Newnham (Centre of Organisational Resilience), who led the community initiative, brought in Hanya Pielichaty (from Lincoln International Business School) and Hannah to lead on the final written consultancy report.

The project explored in detail the barriers and drivers to physical activity in the community. Utilising a mixed methods approach, the team engaged with 597 members of the community, including community partners across all districts and Lincolnshire citizens. The final strategy report, which was over 16,000 words in length and provided a national context to Lincolnshire’s environment and embedded sports policy, was instrumental in the securing of £2.6m of community funding from Sport England.