Mr. John McKernan:

I thank the Chairman for having us here today. It feels a little strange for me to be here because up to approximately a year ago I was a civil servant, a principal officer in the Northern Ireland Civil Service, so I have some sympathy with my colleagues over on this side of the Chamber. I retired a year ago and that has given me much more time to be involved in Special Olympics. I got involved in 2006 when the games came to Belfast, as Mr. McGarry said. In 2007 I started a basketball club in Newtownards. Since then my wife has become involved as club secretary and my daughter has become involved in a help-the-athlete programme. It has become a family affair for us.

I will talk about the impact the funding has had on Special Olympics in Ulster and how we manage that funding. I will try not to go into too much detail. We have an athlete leadership programme. Special Olympics is not just about sports. It is about building a better person in the community. Athlete leadership is about giving them an opportunity to become involved in other things - for example, speaking at public events. At our AGM in Dublin an athlete does a speech. Athletes can also get involved in other small committees. One of the quotes I got from an athlete in conversation was: "I now have the confidence to speak in front of a crowded room. Before Special Olympics I would never have been able to do this." That is the difference the athlete leadership programme has made for our athletes. We also have a families programme and that is very important because Special Olympics is a family. It is very important that we do what we can for the families. We run social events for the families and share various things with them. It is important that families get involved, and they do. In my club we provide tea, coffee and biscuits for the family members who come along. Some of them see it as an opportunity for a bit of respite because they can leave their athletes with us in safe hands for an hour or so and go away and do a bit of shopping or whatever. However, quite a few of them stay and have a cup of tea or coffee and a biscuit. That gives the parents an opportunity to talk to each other and learn from each other's experiences, something they do not often have the opportunity to do.

Families are a very important part of it. We also have a families representative on the regional committee who can bring forward ideas from the families on developing the programme. Our volunteers are an important part of what we do. Mr. McGarry and I are both volunteers. We are developing our volunteers all the time and we have a huge database of volunteers. Many volunteers run our clubs and help to run our events. It is a time commitment. Some volunteers cannot give up time to run a club every week but they can give up time to run an event on a Saturday. A number of volunteers are trained in club management. We have extended the Clubmark NI scheme, which is supported by Sport NI, to the volunteers and we are also extending it to the clubs. It is a standard they can achieve.

Since we received our funding 376 volunteers have qualified as coaches through recognised bodies such as Swim Ireland and Basketball Northern Ireland, and we have recruited 450 volunteers which is approximately 150 a year. We have a volunteer support centre in the Special Olympics Ulster office. Volunteers come along on a Wednesday or Thursday at whatever time suits and help organise events through making phone calls to other volunteers. We depend very much on our volunteers and do what we can to bring them to the required standard.

Education is an important part of what we do. We have a programme whereby we visit schools to tell people about Special Olympics and what it does and engage with second level pupils some of whom have become volunteers because of the education programme. We also have 11 clubs which operate within the schools which is great to see. Towards the end of last year we had an awareness week in which 12 schools took part. Another important part of education which may not come to mind is we have part of a module on the Police Service of Northern Ireland recruitment course in which we tell new recruits about Special Olympics. It is not just to tell them Special Olympics exists and what we do; it means when they finish college and become constables on the beat they know something about intellectual disabilities, and if they come across people with intellectual disabilities they are better prepared to deal with the situation.

A total of 28 clubs are involved in health promotion. This is more than telling people what they should and should not eat, and there has been much in the news recently about avoiding sugar. It is also about personal hygiene and looking after eyesight. When one hears about health promotion one thinks of diets but it is much more than this. We have planned a number of events to support Team Ulster, which will go to the Limerick games in June, with regard to health promotion and how they can look after themselves. Two doctors from the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast work with us. They are doing a study on mental health. They will attend some of our events and will speak to family members about how to recognise certain conditions in mental health.

It goes without saying we are developing our clubs. We have ten new clubs and three more in the pipeline. We are raising standards through the Clubmark NI process. It is all about sport and 336 athletes take part in development days. Not all athletes when they start Special Olympics can immediately play the game and compete. Some of them have a very low skill level. We have development days to develop these skills. We have a motor activities training programme as some athletes cannot even dribble a ball properly. We get them to sit down to lift beanbags to develop and eye co-ordination. We develop them from there to a point they can play a game and eventually be part of a team. This is all very important.

With regard to events, we have focused on our volunteers and trained them on event management. We have become more professional about organising events, equipment, signage, training people to use PA systems, and health and safety. This all came about as a result of the funding we received. We could not have done much of this without the funding. Mr. McGarry spoke about how we obtained funding and I want to give a brief overview of how it is managed. Five departments are involved which come together in the interdepartmental oversight group, which also includes Mr. English, Mr. Cassidy and me from Special Olympics. We meet twice a year. The group has set a number of key performance indicators for us and we have been working on them over the three years we have received funding. I am glad to state that at this point in time all of the indicators are green under the traffic light system. We had a number of amber indicators, and one or two in the red when we started, but I am glad to say they are now all green. We are meeting all of our key performance indicators. These include indicators on the quality of what we do and extending our reach, which is important with regard to the old community divide issue. We now have clubs in east Belfast which, for an organisation based in Dublin is quite an achievement. Athletes travel from as far as Letterkenny to Belfast take part in some of our sports. We have extended the reach quite considerably.

Other key performance indicators are with regard to families, who are much more involved in what we do, and volunteers, who play a very important part of what we do. We not alone get young people involved as athletes but also as volunteers through schools. We also have key performance indicators with regard to the health programme and operating in a safe and secure environment with people who have learning disabilities.

The funding we received from the departments has allowed us not only to sustain the programme, which we could not have done before, but also to grow it in Ulster. To give an indication of the level of trust we have, when we started working with the departments they did not know that much about Special Olympics Ireland, what it was and how we manage our finances. In the initial year of funding we received 40% of the funding up-front after which we received a further 50% and 10% was held back until the end. At the time Special Olympics was unknown and there was a high risk in the view of the departments. I am pleased to state we have developed trust and a very good relationship with the departments through the interdepartmental oversight group meetings. For the year 2014 to 2015 and we have received 90% of our funding up-front and 10% has been held back. This is an indication of our relationship and the confidence the Departments now has in us and the programme we deliver. This gives us the ability to plan ahead. One cannot plan unless one knows one has funding. It is four year funding and we are able to plan to develop our programme over the four years. We are very hopeful the departments will extend the funding for a further year and they have asked us to start work on a business case for the next four years. It all looks as positive as it can be.

There are huge benefits North and South, not only for Special Olympics but also for other organisations in the communities. Mr. McGarry mentioned the World Police and Fire Games. Quite a number of our volunteers also volunteered at the games. Our athletes carried the torch for the opening ceremony, which was a great PR exercise for us and worked very well. A film was made following the torch from Dublin through the North where it was handed over to Dame Mary Peters in the arena for the opening ceremony. There are also benefits for health, education, social development and cross-community issues. Athletes do not care from where they come from or what they do, they just get on with their sport, which committee members will see if they have an opportunity to visit any of our clubs.

The athletes tell a far better story than any of us. They state Special Olympics has changed their lives and given them much more than sport. They state it has given them confidence and self-belief and moments they will remember forever.

One says, "The healthy athlete programme saved my life. I have become fit and developed true friends".

Special Olympics is much more than sport and should be recognised for that. When a parent brought their child along when we started the club, the child hung onto his mother and would not let go of her. He was very nervous, but he gradually developed and started to take part in basketball. His mother said to me one night, "Jordan would never have done that before. I could not get him to do anything at school." He went to a special needs school and would not do anything else in the school, but the Special Olympics just clicked with him and he got going. There is an inter-club basketball competition on Saturday in Derry and my team is travelling there to take part in it. I received a text from that mother recently saying that she and one of her friends had a really difficult decision to make because they had been invited to afternoon tea at the Titanic in Belfast and they had the basketball in Derry on Saturday. I will leave the committee to think on which they chose.