World-leading Learning Disability Super League season closes with celebration

As the final fixture of the Community Integrated Care Learning Disability Super League season approaches this Saturday, 21st September, the Rugby Football League, the charity behind the initiative, and the participating Club Foundations are gearing up for a huge celebratory event, recognising their most impactful season to date.

Following a recent exhibition at Elland Road for Magic Weekend, over 400 players will live their dreams as Super League stars at the ‘The Jungle’ stadium in Castleford to close out another incredible year. This milestone comes as the programme has been shortlisted as one of the best sports community projects in the world by the prestigious Sports Business Awards.

The 2024 season has been driven by several new innovations to enhance the skills, understanding and confidence of coaches and volunteers delivering the programme, created by the national social care charity, Community Integrated Care.

This includes co-producing an inspirational framework to help coaches, families and players understand the inclusive values and behaviours that make this programme accessible for all. Every club in the project has had access to specialist training and mentoring from the charity, in partnership with the RFL, to develop skills to engage audiences that typically are excluded and overlooked within sport.

As a founding ambassador of the programme, Leeds Rhino’s legend and Chair of the RFL’s Inclusion Board, Jamie Jones-Buchanan MBE, proudly supported the training, volunteering his time to communicate the sport’s principles through inspirational videos, helping to unite the entire sport behind the enabling purpose of the game.

These efforts have seen the project recently shortlisted at the 2024 Sports Business Awards in the Best Sports Community Scheme category, alongside major programmes from across the world – from Abu Dhabi to Houston, Texas.

By offering people who face the greatest challenges to participating in sports the chance to play an adapted, non-competitive variant of the sport for the clubs they love, the partnership serves as a powerful catalyst for addressing disability exclusion and societal inequalities.

John Hughes, Director of Partnerships and Communities at Community Integrated Care said: “Through our unique partnership with the RFL, we’ve been able to carefully design a world-first programme that empowers, enables and changes lives. We are proud of the role that Community Integrated Care has played in this partnership – developing innovative training solutions that empower coaches to understand their players, creating solutions that develop the independence and skills of players, and helping to shape a truly inclusive community.

"It has been an honour to work alongside the Rugby Football League and the 19 incredible clubs who deliver this programme. In a world where too many people who have learning disabilities face isolation, prejudice and inequalities, the Community Integrated Care Learning Disability Super League shows the potential of a different reality.

"We'd like to wish all players the best of luck this weekend and thank them and share our appreciation for their families and support networks, the coaches and volunteers, and the Foundation and RFL teams for their incredible efforts this season.”

Tom Brindle, Head of Development at the Rugby Football League said: “Rugby League is truly unique as the only sport in the world with an official social care partner. Our collaboration with Community Integrated Care is a huge part of what makes this sport so great.

"We’re very proud of the programmes we deliver with Community Integrated Care and our partnership, which continues to go from strength to strength. Having an expert partner working alongside us, in Community Integrated Care, gives our teams and Foundation’s access to a depth of skills and understanding to better support the participants and their families and support.

"We know that everyone associated with the sport will be deservedly proud of the nomination at the international Sports Business Awards. We are excited to close our season with another incredible festival at Castleford and look forward to an even bigger 2025.”