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Challenge: Well-meaning but untrained volunteers The Play: Train All Coaches
From the Sport for All, Play for Life report: Coaches can create athletes for life — or wreck their enthusiasm for sport altogether. Get them trained in key competencies, including safety, sport skills and general coaching philosophy. FIVE KEY FINDINGS IN OAKLAND Oakland sports providers lack consistency in how they train coaches.
Anecdotally, Oakland’s inconsistent standards seem to mirror national trends. Few coaches nationally are trained in CPR/basic first aid (46%), general safety and injury prevention (32%), sports skills and tactics (32%), physical conditioning (30%), effective motivational techniques (29%), and concussion management (27%). 40 In Oakland, sports providers highlighted a lack of consistent training among organizations or even between multiple sites within an organization, such as recreation centers within Oakland Parks, Recreation and Youth Development, and school sites that hire outside partners. For instance, Oakland Leaf serves more than 800 students through after- school programming at six elementary and middle schools. This includes subcontracting with America SCORES for organized soccer and Junior Giants for baseball curriculum. Oakland Leaf Executive Director Melissa Mendez Ochoa said not all of her instructors are trained in coaching skills or how to engage kids, and she notices differences with untrained coaches. “When we don’t have someone to partner with, we research different curriculum,” she said. “We’re lucky everyone we’ve hired has played the sport. That doesn’t mean they don’t have
a lot to learn.” OUSD partners with 17 lead agencies, such as Oakland Leaf, to provide after- school programming beyond just sports at 75 schools. Becoming a lead agency “can be a lot of work if you’re a small agency and don’t have staff capacity,” Ochoa said. Kids of color report feeling fewer positive coach interactions. In our youth survey, Latino/a children were the least likely to say that a coach frequently or almost always makes them feel good when they improve a skill (52% Latino/a vs. 67% White) and tells the team that every player is important (45% Latino/a vs. 73% White). Among respondents who don’t play sports often, Latino/a youth were
STATE OF PLAY OAKLAND
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