Are you sitting down? You’ll need to be!
Our unique Seated SOSA Dance Fitness programme has been created for older adults, disabled participants, those with long-term health conditions and GP referral / rehabilitation clients. The programme delivers special considerations and adaptations for all levels of ability and ranges of movement, making it inclusive for EVERYONE who for one reason or another, is not able to stand to take part in a dance class.
Chair dance for EVERYONE!!
Seated SOSA Dance Fitness is an original International dance fitness programme, utilising authentic steps, body and arm styling movements from 37 different dance styles, with an emphasis on ensuring maximum enjoyment for the participant!
- Authentic Moves for Chair Dance – All choreography is designed to stay true to the authentic technique of each dance style
- Fun-packed – Choreography is set to an amazing range of happy, memorable and catchy dance tunes…to ensure participants are singing along, as well as dancing!
- Promotion of Wellbeing – Classes provide a fun and relaxed social environment, combating loneliness and social isolation – whilst improving posture, coordination and cardiovascular health…the combining of these elements greatly improve general happiness and wellbeing
- Fully Inclusive – Adaptable for all degrees of abilities and health conditions, the programme is aimed at inspiring vulnerable and inactive groups
Background & Endorsements
Seated SOSA has been in development since 2016 and it has been trialled in many different settings, it was officially launched to the fitness industry in 2018.
There are currently over 100 instructors that are already trained to deliver the programme, running established regular weekly classes with various local councils and Age UK community groups across UK.
The entire fitness team at YMCA in East London have been trained and run classes every week on their timetable for older adults and stroke rehabilitation patients.
Seated SOSA is part of the rehabilitation/disability programme with Everyone Active in Warwickshire, being included in their in-house weekly group exercise timetable and community outreach programmes including as part of a local NHS Physiotherapy Rehabilitation After-Care service.
Seated SOSA is currently active with many disability groups including Multiple Sclerosis / Dementia /visual impairment and amputees.
We developed and trialled the programme for 12 months in association with ActivLives, a charity who run incredible activity day care centres in Suffolk for older/vulnerable adults.
We are passionate about inclusivity for our instructors as well as our participants and are very proud that our Seated SOSA programme was taken as an example of a fully inclusive training provider in a case study by University of Birmingham for InstructAbility (funded by Sport England) to set fitness industry guidelines/standards on training disabled fitness instructors. Guidelines as a result of the research are to be published by CIMSPA/Sport England to all industry employers/training providers.
Sport England ‘Tackling Inequalities’ Funding
This fund exists to help to reduce the negative impact of coronavirus and the widening of the inequalities in sport and physical activity.
Tackling Inequalities Fund was created with £20 million of National Lottery funding to help reduce the negative impact on activity levels in these under-represented groups, with a specific focus on:
– Lower socio-economic groups
– Disabled people
– People with long-term health conditions.
We are absolutely delighted to announce that SOSA & Starlets Community Interest Company has been awarded funding by Sport England to support their Tackling Inequalities Funding project.
Our project specifically targets care homes, creating new content designed specifically for those with long-term health conditions and disabilities, and for a specific falls prevention programme in Suffolk for their older/vulnerable adult day care centres.
We will be delivering this project via on-demand services and live sessions.
The project will also create additional content for care home staff, carers or activity coordinators to develop understanding of the concept and building confidence on how to facilitate the sessions, which gives the project longevity should COVID restrictions continue in vulnerable settings.
We are thrilled that Caring UK Magazine, the largest and most established care sector publication in the UK, published an article about our Seated SOSA Dance Fitness Community Interest Programme in their November 2020 edition, which was distributed to 11,000 care homes nationwide.
