Love is All project continues work to develop Hockey ID

The EHF and Erasmus+ project Love Is All had their second meeting in Rome to continue the work in developing Hockey ID.

The opening day of the meeting saw the group share their experiences of the last months and upcoming events along with highlight moments from their respective regions.

The second day saw the session take place at Centro Olimpico Giulio Onesti, a sports centre was built in July 1954, designed by the architect Annibale Vitellozzi, at the behest of the then president of CONI Giulio Onesti, after the assignment of Rome as the host city for the 24th Olympic Games.

The group was welcomed by Sergio Mignardi, president of the Italian hockey federation, and EHF Executive Board member Sabina Zampetti. 

After this warm welcome, they started an intensive day with the objective of structuring their different toolkits.

During the morning, the EHF’s Tom Pedersen-Smith facilitated a brainstorming session about the expectations and design criteria that should be taken into account when producing the toolkits relating to:

– Coach Development
– Life skills program
– Grassroots manual
– Event manual

During the lunch break, the group moved to a nearby pitch to meet the Rome Hockey ID team, coached by Marco Carboni. It was the opportunity to exchange with the athletes and to see their abilities on the pitch. Carboni has been a lifelong Hockey ID coach and has worked to give more intellectually disabled people the possibility to enjoy hockey.

In the afternoon, Adam and Michele for the University of Copenhagen presented their summary report of the sport for people with mental disabilities in scientific literature.

This extensive analysis gave a lot of insight to develop the four toolkits. Simona and Federica from the Italian federation followed up with their analysis of the European hockey ID scene and shared all materials gathered related to the toolkit topics.

Following the collection of feedback from stakeholders, the group were able to design a first direction of the blueprint for the four toolkit parts.

Norman Hughes – Coach development; Antoine Fournier – Life Skills; Frederica Gerosa – Grassroots and Natascha Bruers – Event Manual took on leadership of the various sections with the aim to produce final drafts later this year.

The aim of these blueprint versions is that they will be tested in partner countries to see how they work in reality.

In addition to this collective work, the attendees took in some very interesting presentations from Marta Puig and Linda Overmeiren who showcased their experience in developing Hockey ID in Spain and Germany, respectively.

The session concluded with the dissemination of activities, focusing especially on the next steps with the Erasmus LIA programme.

The group is planning for their next meeting in Prague later this year.

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