What Do You Need?

There are two levels of workshops for community sport coaches: Initiation (or introduction) and Ongoing participation.

The Community Sport – Initiation context focuses on participants who are being introduced to a sport. In many sports this is very young children participating in the sport for the first time. In a few sports, initiation into the sport can occur with youth or adults. Participants get involved to meet new friends, have fun, and to learn a new activity. The role of the coach is to ensure a fun and safe environment and to teach the development of some of the “FUNdamentals” stage skills and abilities for participants.

The Community Sport – Ongoing participation context is typically for either youth participating in a recreational environment, or masters participants participating for recreation, fitness, and socialization reasons. The participants are in the Active for Life stage of long-term athlete development. The role of the coach is to encourage participants to continue their involvement in the sport.

There are three levels of workshops for competition coaches that reflect the stages of athlete development: Introduction, Development, and High performance.

The Competition – Introduction context is designed for coaches of athletes moving from the FUNdamentals to the Learn to Train and Train to Train stages of long-term athlete development.

The Competition – Development context is designed for coaches of athletes ranging from the Train to Train to the Train to Compete stages of long-term athlete development.

The Competition – High performance context is typically reserved coaches of athletes in the Train to Win stage of long-term athlete development although there is the possibility of some phasing in of a Train to Compete athlete into the High Performance level because of the fluidity of the stages of long-term athlete development. Coaches in this stream require specific skills and abilities in order to meet the needs of their athletes.

The Instruction stream has three different levels of workshops: Beginners, Intermediate performers, and Advanced performers.

Instructors in the Instruction – Beginners context are usually working with participants who are experiencing the sport for the first time through a series of lessons. Typically there’s no formalized competition at this level – it’s strictly about skill development and there is a short timeframe of interaction between the instructor and the participant.

Instructors in the Instruction – Intermediate performers and Instruction – Advanced performers contexts are very specialized and are specifically there to assist athletes crossing over from competitive sport to gain enhanced skills, and in some cases, tactical development specific to their sport.