Step 2 - setting up screening
Ideally, screening should take place prior to the start of the course. You could:
- Provide a screening questionnaire with your organisation's promotional literature, and/or to download from its website. The completed forms can be submitted with a postal application or brought to enrolment.
- Carry out readiness-to-exercise screening as part of 'in person' enrolment.
If neither of these is realistic, desirable or appropriate, then you will need to discuss health issues with learners at their first session. This will work where learners accept that discussing their state of health is part of the course, for example, on a GP referral programme, and if you explain the purposes of the exercise clearly.
Learners are not legally obliged to disclose a disability, and some are reluctant to do so. You need to explain the benefits of disclosure clearly on the screening form and/or in face-to-face discussion.
Repeat screening regularly, say termly, on longer courses and make sure that learners who stay in tuition for several years are screened regularly. Learners' health status can change at any time for medical reasons or because of the ageing process or the reproductive cycle, and you need to be aware of the changes.
"You can make readiness-to-exercise screening more attractive and meaningful to learners by planning a range of activities that give them the opportunity to assess their own fitness levels, while you talk to individuals one-to-one about their health issues and medical conditions. You need quite a few resources, but the bonus is that the self-assessment activities act as ice-breakers and get people talking. This has immediate benefits."
Jenny, yoga tutor.