Kathryn Talbot-Heigh joins as Highlands RDM
By William Moncrieff, Communications Apprentice
Encourage by friends and colleagues to apply, Kathryn Talbot-Heigh joined the SDS team as the Highlands regional development manager in mid-September (2023).
Talbot-Heigh enters the role with a strong skillset gained throughout her years of experience as a coach and instructor. She has always had an interest in sport and working with individuals with a disability, influenced by her personal life as well as her professional. Her career has seen her running her own swim school, coaching at the Grantown swim club and being a gymnastics coach at Inverness Gymnastics club. Talbot-Heigh further gained skills and experience through being a support worker at a local nursery where she worked with an individual with autism and delivered 1-2-1 play therapy.
One of the first things that attracted Talbot-Heigh to the role was the ability to make a difference. This is something that she has always been passionate about and the role will give her the opportunity to do so; having an impact on individuals and at community level.
Talbot-Heigh is conscious that changing perceptions and awareness of disability sport and involvement in mainstream sporting clubs is going to be a challenge but an exciting one that she is already quite familiar with. A way of influencing opinions and perceptions is through opening a dialogue; allowing people to be curious and want to ask questions about disability and disability sport. It’s an area she’d like to develop to help provide more opportunities as well as developing and improving the pathways already available.
Another focus area that the new RDM is looking to work on, is “normalising the disability”.
One way in achieving this is giving athletes and coaches out with disability sport, access to disability sport and opportunities to train with athletes with a disability. She believes that if you can provide coaches and players with experiences of participating in Para sports that they will gain more of an understanding and an insight into how to behave, interact and communicate with an individual who has a disability. The hope is that this will result in Para athletes having not only a greater experience but also providing a wider group of individuals chances to become more build understanding and compassion.
Talbot-Heigh is ready to tackle barriers and fight limitations through creative thinking and problem solving throughout her role as the Highlands new regional development manager.
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