Special Olympics Unified Champion Schools (UCS) is a strategy that aims to promote social inclusion in schools through sports and education. The program is available for schools from pre-K through college.
UCS uses three main components to achieve its goals:
Special Olympics Unified Sports: Students with and without intellectual disabilities play on the same sports teams.
Inclusive youth leadership: Students with and without disabilities have opportunities to lead and have their voices heard
Whole school engagement: The entire school community hears messages of inclusion.
Unified
All activities and events are Unified, meaning that there are approximately equal numbers of students with ID (athletes) and students without ID (partners). All individuals, regardless of their role, participate meaningfully and to the best of their ability.
SONJ Funding
To achieve our goal of creating school environments where all students feel accepted, respected, and included, SONJ provides funding to eligible schools to support the implementation of Unified initiatives.
The SONJ UCS grants are intended to be seed money to get your Unified programs and activities up and running. The expectation is that the district will absorb these costs within 5-7 years.
Just because the UCS grant can't reimburse everything doesn't mean you can't use it for your Unified Sports or Unified Clubs! The school/district may fund these expenses, such as snacks. Or schools may fundraise and use those funds however you'd like.
