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Exploring New Hampshire Recreation Directors' Perceptions of Youth Sports Leadership and Coach Development Holly Fosher Bob Barcelona, Ph.D., Karen Collins, Ph.D. Participants •Participants included expert youth sport leaders (n=43) who were invited to attend a professional development workshop related to youth sports in March, 2015. Procedures •Participants were split into six smaller working groups of 6-8 members, where there was a facilitated conversation focused on three topics: Youth Sport Leadership, Parents, and Coach Development. •Each working group discussed all three topics, and detailed notes were taken by trained facilitators to reflect the group’s conversation. •All focus groups were debriefed and notes were independently analyzed and coded by the research team. •The research team collaborated to develop 18 categories and 5 cross- cutting themes based on the data. •Member checks were conducted with participants describing the themes and model, and giving an opportunity for participants to clarify and discuss. The purpose of this exploratory study was to understand the needs of veteran youth recreational sport directors related to coach training and development, and to better understand how coach development can be more consistently implemented across different youth sport 18 categories were collapsed into five (5) major themes that emerged following analysis of the data: 1.Developing a Youth Sports Philosophy 1.Effectively Working With Sport Parents 1.Addressing Concerns About Access/Equity of Youth Sport Opportunities 1.Clarifying and Implementing Coach Development Practices 1.Addressing Organization and Administration Concerns Regarding Youth Sports Programming • Aid in the development of youth sport philosophies that are consistent within the agency, including across multiple community youth sport programs. • Create and implement a system of coach development for recreational youth sport coaches (e.g. training, coaching resources, mentoring, reflective practice, evaluation). • Develop materials and resources to educate and support positive sport parenting. • Create a certification program for youth sport directors focused on coach development and youth sport administration. • Improving the quality of youth sport coaching has long been a goal of sport advocates, researchers, and administrators (Conroy & Coatsworth, 2006; Fraser- Thomas, Côté, & Deakin, 2005). • Research on youth sport programs across the United States, and Northern New England in particular, has identified a void in coach training (Barcelona & Young, 2010). • As such, a partnership with recreation and community programs led to the development of a basic coach-training program (CoachSmartNH). Since its inception in 2005, communities in NH have been using CSNH, providing basic coaching information for their youth sport coaches. • A program evaluation by Barcelona & Collins (2014) indicated that,1) coaches found CSNH training to be useful, and 2) coaches identified additional gaps in their development that they wanted to see addressed. • As such, additional research is needed to develop and provide new training and development opportunities for youth sport coaches and administrators.
