Background to Project iCoachKidsThe figure of the coach is central in 21st century Europe (CoachLearn, 2016). The development of a suitably educated coaching workforce has been recognised as a priority area at the highest levels of European policy. The European Commission has also expressed the need to bring coaching qualifications into national frameworks and thus align them with wider tools such as EQF, ECTS, ECVET and EQAVET. Where coaching qualifications already sit within national frameworks, they tend to do so within the vocational education and training (VET) sector. Enhancing the quality and status of VET is a European Commission priority. Member States have made a commitment to investing in VET to raise the effectiveness and attractiveness of VET qualifications. These policies seek to increase the employability of people, reduce skills' mismatches, facilitate the transition into employment and promote personal development and quality of life (European Commission, Riga Conclusions, 2015). Coaching qualifications must therefore be re-considered in light of these developments. This is specially true in the case of youth sport. Approximately 80% of the 6-10 million coaches in Europe work with children. Most importantly, the majority of them are not qualified or hold low level qualifications. Those qualified tend to hold a generic qualification that does not prepare them to work specifically with 5-12 year-olds. As a result, there is a vast skills-gap between the world of coach education for coaches of children and the needs of the labour market. In turn, children are not receiving high quality coaching which increases attrition rates and reduces the chances of sport having a positive impact in their life. To start solving these issues, iCoachKids proposes the following project outputs:1. Report the children’s coaching workforce in the seven European countries represented in the partnership to better understand its demography and needs 2. Case Study Compilation to capture examples of best practice in the education of children's coaches in VET.3. Development of a European Coaching Children Curriculum to guide organisations wishing to develop coaching qualifications in this area4. Building of 3 Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC) for coaches of children covering the curriculum which can be used by VET institutions to facilitate the mass training of children's coaches.5. Study guides to support the MOOC candidates pre, during and post course.6. Creation of iCoachKids Online Platform to host the MOOCs and serve as a hub and repository of information for the European community of children's coaches.Number and Profile of ParticipantsiCoachKids is led by Leeds Beckett University and comprises a consortium of leading organisations in coach education such as the International Council for Coaching Excellence, the Hungarian Coaches Association, Sport Ireland-Coaching Ireland, Universidad Europea Madrid, NOC-NSF, Lithuanian Sport University and the Royal Belgium Football Association.The project aims to impact on the following target populations:1. National coordinating bodies for coach education2. VET providers and National Federations3. Coach Employers4. Coaches Associations5. Coach Developers6. Sport CoachesResults, Impact and Long-Term BenefitsiCoachKids will result in:- more accessible and inclusive VET training opportunities for sport coaches working in the youth sport domain- increased employability and mobility- a suitably trained children's coaches workforce across the EUIn turn, the above will contribute to:- increased sport participation and satisfaction of European children- enhanced physical and mental wellbeing of European children- the use of sport as a tool for integration in Europe- positive health and economic outcomesiCoachKids is a project built with long-term sustainability in mind. ICCE has committed to guaranteeing the impact of the project beyond the initial three years through the mass dissemination of the outputs and the regular upkeep the online platform for years to come.
iCoachKids aimed to improve the experiences of children and young people in sport by facilitating the development of a specialist youth sport workforce. It did so by: - Gathering a solid evidence foundation to inform best practice in youth sport coaching - Providing guidance for coach education providers in how to create suitable learning opportunities for youth coaches - Developing a suite of FREE educational resources for youth sport coaches. iCoachKids was led by Leeds Beckett University and comprised a consortium of leading organisations in coach education such as the International Council for Coaching Excellence, the Hungarian Coaching Association, Sport Ireland-Coaching Ireland, Universidad Europea de Madrid, NOC-NSF, Lithuanian Sport University and the Royal Belgian Football Association. The strength of the consortium laid in the breadth of organisations which included international coaching bodies, national coaching leads, national Olympic committess, universities, coaches associations and sport federations. The project aimed to impact on the following target populations: 1) National coordinating bodies for coach education; 2) VET providers and National Federations 3) Coach Employers 4) Coaches Associations 5) Coach Developers. Along the lifespan of the project a large number of sporting organisations signed memoranda of understanding to become iCoachKids supporters and promote the use of its outputs amongst their members. This include amongst many others: UEFA, FIBA, World Rugby, International Skating Union, Real Madrid Foundation, Special Olympics, Sport England and the German Olympic Committee. Beyond the European Union, other international organisations who have become iCoachKids supporters include the United States Council for Coaching Excellence, Save the Dream Qatar and the Singapore National Youth Sport Institute. To achieve its goals, iCoachKids delivered the following intellectual outputs: 1. Audit report of the children’s coaching workforce in the seven European countries represented in the partnership to better understand its demography and needs. 2. Case Study Compilation to capture examples of best practice in the education of children's coaches in VET. 3. A European Coaching Children Curriculum to guide organisations wishing to develop coaching qualifications in this area. 4. Three Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) for coaches of children covering the curriculum which can be used by VET institutions to facilitate the mass training of children's coaches. 5. Study guides to support the three MOOC candidates pre, during and post course. 6. Creation of iCoachKids Online Platform to host the MOOCs and serve as a hub and repository of information for the European community of children's coaches. iCoachKids has delivered all the promised intellectual outputs and multiplier events on time and on budget and to an extremely high level of quality. This is proven by the fact that iCoachKids became one of the Erasmus+ flagship projects for the European Commission who regularly highlighted the project’s achievements on their social medial channels and invited iCoachKids to be one of only two projects to be presented at the recent Finnish Presidency Sport Conference in Espoo on 24th September 2019. The strength and impact of the project has also been shown in the awarding of a new Erasmus+ Sport three-year grant to develop iCoachKids Plus, an extension of the original iCoachKids project. By completing and successfully disseminating the project’s intellectual outputs and activities, iCoachKids has also had a significant impact in the education and employability of youth coaches and in the quality of the sporting experiences of children and young people. To date, over 10,000 coaches a month from all over the world have visited our platform and 3,000 coaches have taken the free online training. As the following paragraph shows, these numbers are due to grow exponentially shortly into the hundreds of thousands. In relation to its long-term benefits, the most significant impact of the project has been the birth of a the iCoachKids Global Movement. Dozens of organisations from all over the world have expressed an interest in introducing the project’s philosophy, exemplified in the iCoachKids Pledge (10 Golden Rules for Positive Sport Experiences), and using the FREE resources. Over the last three years, iCoachKids’ participation has been requested at conferences and events across five continents, in countries including the USA, Mexico, South Africa, Australia, China, Singapore, Japan and all over Europe. Requests from organisations and institutions to affiliate to the iCoachKids movement and to run national iCoachKids conferences have poured in. Translations into additional languages such as Portuguese and Chinese are under development as are customisations of the MOOCs for football and ice skating. Without question, iCoachKids is here to stay.