Providing Better Support to Club Coaches:

Transcription

1 : The Approach Taken by England Athletics Introduction sports coach UK has a desire to increase the support that coaches receive and to subsequently improve coach retention. Through working with key Partners, a new workshop has been created: Supporting Coaches: A Guide to Recruiting, Developing and Retaining Your Coaches. This case study focuses on the new workshop and how England Athletics has tailored it and is working with the England Coaching Network * to improve the support it provides to its coaches. * England Coaching Network is the new name for the Coaching System Support Network (CSSN).

2 It was a useful workshop, and it reminded me of how we have to make new and existing coaches feel part of the club and how much they are appreciated for all their hard work. Jim Bennett, Endurance Area Coach Mentor and Coaching Secretary, Marshall Milton Keynes AC The Problem England Athletics Identified In 2011, England Athletics completed a club coaching audit. The research was commissioned to help England Athletics to evaluate the condition of the coaching infrastructure and refine the planning and delivery of coaching resources. 137 clubs responded to the survey, and one of the key findings was: Supporting, recruiting and retaining volunteers had been identified by clubs as a significant factor in increasing their coaching capacity. England Athletics wanted to do something to support the clubs and coaches, and sports coach UK was creating a workshop that could be part of the solution. Why is it Important to Support and Retain Coaches? Research shows that around 20% of people stop coaching each year. This places a considerable drain on everyone as it equates to around 400,000 people either entering or leaving coaching each year. This forces organisations and clubs to use already limited resources on recruiting new coaches, rather than developing existing ones. Obviously, some people leave coaching for personal reasons that are impossible to control (such as health and family), but for almost one third of coaches, it is possible to address the reasons for leaving (eg a lack of support or opportunities). This was the problem sports coach UK sought to solve, and one solution was a new workshop to help clubs and other organisations Supporting Coaches: A Guide to Recruiting, Developing and Retaining Your Coaches. % e hing 66% Pe y

3 How the Two Came Together Through sports coach UK and England Athletics working closely together, they realised they had a joint ambition to provide better support to coaches. In particular, England Athletics was keen to provide some solutions to the findings in the club survey. It was felt the Supporting Coaches workshop could be a key part of the solution, helping athletics clubs to recruit, develop and retain their coaches more effectively. An initial meeting was held to discuss the workshop in more detail. England Athletics was keen to understand the demand for this workshop from its volunteer workforce so the next step was a consultation event, involving representatives from a number of athletics networks, to see if the workshop would definitely be of benefit. This provided the chance to explore the content and format in more detail and discuss who would be the best people to deliver it. The consensus was that the workshop was needed, but it should be tailored for athletics to create a greater connection to the clubs and coaches. The consultation also identified that it was important to keep the support in the form of a face-to-face workshop as it would allow attendees to discuss issues, and share ideas and good practice. England Athletics has a network of Club and Coach Support Officers (CCSOs). The CCSOs do exactly as their title suggests support the invaluable work of clubs and coaches. They were therefore identified as the ideal tutors for the workshop. We delivered the Supporting Coaches workshop to 12 coaches from clubs in the Surrey/North Hampshire area in partnership with Active Surrey. The benefit of working with Suzannah Laver (Active Surrey) was the experience she brought through working with a cross section of sports. She was able to highlight good practice in other sports and give advice on local contacts and programmes to support coaches. As a result of this workshop, we have identified the potential for future partnership working through an introduction to coaching session, which the county sports partnership (CSP) is looking to deliver. Chris Benning, Club and Coach Support Officer Hampshire and Surrey We saw the Supporting Coaches workshop as a great way of pulling together information and key messages about the various programmes, tools and initiatives that exist to help support and develop coaches, both from England Athletics and the wider support offered both locally and nationally through the England Coaching Network. By aiming the workshop at club coaching coordinators, we can really start to challenge current club practice and provide the opportunity to share existing best practice to help all clubs better recruit, develop and retain their coaching workforce. The workshop is a great starting point for our CCSOs to identify specific areas of need. Leonie Lightfoot, Coach Development Manager, England Athletics Steven Paston/Action Images Limited

4 Making it Sport-specific The workshop content was made sport-specific through the steps highlighted in the diagram below. Changes were made to include information on: the athletics landscape and key coaching data athletics coach development opportunities the new coaching and leadership courses available. In addition, athletics-specific examples and scenarios were used to bring tasks to life. There are a number of supporting materials for the workshop. These were also tailored to athletics. England Athletics had already developed a volunteer tool kit containing a number of helpful resources and, through this work, was able to re-promote and highlight some of the key supporting materials they already had to help clubs. Scoping meetings with staff from both organisations Consultation event with athletics networks About the Generic Workshop The Supporting Coaches: A Guide to Recruiting, Developing and Retaining Your Coaches workshop was created for people who are responsible for recruiting, developing and retaining coaches. This could be: coaching coordinators volunteer coordinators head coaches managers of coaches sport development officers coaching agencies. The workshop covers: methods and good practice to recruit coaches the importance of developing coaches and the tools to use how successful coach support can help retain coaches. Draft athletics version of the workshop finalised Three pilot workshops held (North, Midlands, South) Final workshop written based on pilot feedback CCSOs trained as tutors Workshop launched to athletics clubs

5 Added Value Lessons Learnt Across England, all 49 CSPs have someone trained to deliver the generic workshop, predominantly the coaching lead. England Athletics was keen for workshops to be jointly delivered between the coaching leads and CCSOs. England Athletics thought it would add value by: bringing in expertise from outside athletics to share learning from other sports promoting the wider coaching support network available through the CSP supporting delivery, organisation, marketing and promotion of workshops. sports coach UK staff helped to turn the idea of joint delivery into a reality, through promoting the opportunity to work with England Athletics to the coaching leads. England Athletics also gave the same message to the CCSOs while they were being oriented to deliver the workshop. All CCSOs were encouraged to make contact with their local CSP about running the workshop together. The model is starting to work in practice, with joint delivery taking place across some areas of the country. These developing partnerships at a local level have led to other joint projects being delivered in some cases. Alex Morton/Action Images Limited The importance of local networks the model used is a great example of a national programme being created to meet a local need and solve a challenge facing athletics clubs. The workshop is simply a starting point. All participants leave the workshop with an action plan, identifying the support they need from England Athletics CCSOs/their CSP, which gives a great platform for future support to be provided in targeted areas. The value of partnership working England Athletics and sports coach UK have been able to work together to create a solution to a joint problem. Partnership working at a local level has also added value. The joint delivery by CCSOs and CSPs has also been of benefit in pooling resources and expertise. The importance of piloting we learnt more about the athletics-specific workshop each time it was piloted. It gave us a chance to listen to feedback from club coaches and coaching coordinators as to how the workshop could be better adapted to meet their needs. Evaluating each pilot allowed us to create a better quality product. Tailoring the language we have adapted the content to make it athletics-specific, but it is also suitable for those working with volunteers and paid coaches. Making it sport-specific having athletics-specific research and support added value to the workshop by creating a greater connection with those attending from athletics clubs. You dont have to start from scratch the Supporting Coaches workshop was another avenue to highlight to clubs the existing resources England Athletics has to support them and an opportunity to bring these resources to life through the topics in the workshops. For more information, contact: Leonie Lightfoot, Coach Development Manager, England Athletics: llightfoot@englandathletics.org Ollie Holt, Coaching System Manager, sports coach UK: oholt@sportscoachuk.org Nicola Beattie, Coaching Advisor, sports coach UK: nbeattie@sportscoachuk.org If you want to find out more about the Supporting Coaches workshop, visit: or i sports coach UK, 2013 Designed and produced by Coachwise Ltd. Images England Athletics unless otherwise stated 90793:11