90883_1 Coaching Summit Programme March 2014 | Page 9

Seminars

Are We Really Welcoming Women into Coaching?
Speakers: Leonie Lightfoot (England Athletics) and Mike Fisher (sports coach UK)

Coaching remains unrepresentative of the current sporting
and general population: it is a predominantly male, white
and non-disabled activity. Women are under-represented
in coaching, especially from Level 2 qualifications upwards.
Disabled people face greater barriers than non-disabled
people to become, and develop as, coaches. Recognising
that coaching is not yet inclusive or representative of today’s
society, delegates at the 2013 UK Coaching Summit agreed
that action must be taken to address this imbalance. In
fact, they went a step further, calling for coaching to lead
the change for the sport sector to become more diverse.
Twelve months on, this session will provide an overview of
developments so far in creating a more diverse coaching
workforce across the breadth of under-represented groups.
Traditionally, sport and coaching have been dominated by
men. We shouldn’t be surprised then that most approaches
to developing and recruiting coaches have been designed by
men for men. So ho ܁