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UK Sport seeking FPP Interns

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UK Sport Press Release 27 April 2006

UK Sport’s Fast-track Practitioner Programme (FPP), now entering its third year, is currently looking to recruit new interns across the English, Northern Irish and Welsh institutes.

The FPP is operated in partnership with the Home Country Sports Institutes, and is designed to fast-track some of the nations best young support talent to a position where they have the skills and expertise required to work with elite athletes. The programme is now seeking eight new interns across the disciplines of physiotherapy, strength and conditioning, performance analysis, sports science, physiology, nutrition and biomechanics.

"Our world class aims have to have world class back-up if they are to be realized," said Liz Nicholl, UK Sport’s Director of Performance. "The Fast-Track Practitioner Programme is about doing just that – taking talented performers in crucial disciplines and finding ways in which we can make them even better."

Each intern will be hosted at one of the Home Country Sports Institute sites and will undertake a sustained learning experience under the guidance of an experienced mentor. This includes on the job training, a structured series of professional development workshop and exchange visits. They will be challenged to develop their specialist skills as quickly as possible, so that they have the essential toolkit for working in high-performance sport.

Chris McLeod, one of the first to go through the programme, and now working full time as a strength and conditioning coach with the English Institute of Sport in Bath notes 'The main benefits that I found on the course were the opportunities and insights that it gave us all, I felt it exposed me to situations, environments and people on a daily basis which meant I learnt more in 12 months than I thought was possible"

Professor Grey Whyte, Director of Science and Research at the English Institute of Sport stressed the importance of the scheme saying "The internship programme plays a crucial role in the development of future world leading service providers. The programme plays a pivotal role in closing the gap that exists in the provision of support services to elite sport by offering fast track practical and theoretical development of highly talented support service providers".

The importance of the scheme was further emphasised by Matt Cosgrove, Sports Science Manager at the Sports Council for Wales. "The development of the FPP over the last couple of years has been a very positive development in the provision of sports science and sports medicine support in the UK," he said. "The programme is fast tracking quality individuals through the system by providing them with intensive work experience. As a result, a much needed and rapid increase in the number of practitioners capable of supporting high performance athletes is taking place. The Sports Council for Wales is pleased to be contributing to this growth in the number of high level practitioners that will benefit the UK high performance system as a whole."

The posts run for 12 months and are supported financially by UK Sport, the respective institutes – and in one case – the British Paralympic Association. Further details are available on the job page of this website.

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