Applied Coaching Research Journal Research Journal 2 | Page 47

APPLIED COACHING RESEARCH JOURNAL 2018, Vol. 2
ARE THERE
ANY PLANS TO
RUN FUTURE
CONFERENCES?
Coaching in the Community is playing
an increasingly important role.
Community coaches have been tasked
with doing more than focusing on
sport development alone. Instead, they
are also charged with using sport and
leisure activities to deliver social policy
outcomes (eg reducing crime, developing
pro-social behaviour, overcoming social
isolation and exclusion, rebuilding
communities, developing healthy
lifestyles, and raising educational
aspirations and attainment) by working
with target populations (eg disaffected
youth, unemployed, disabled). The
importance of coaches engaging
under-represented groups in the
community has received significant
attention in recent public Sport England
reports. It was fantastic to hear about
the research that is specifically trying to
explore and understand those realities of
practice for community sports coaches
who are trying to deliver various
different schemes on the ground level.
The day was a great success, with a
strong community feel. The presenters
and delegates shared some rich
insights into the current landscape of
community sports coaching; in particular,
illuminating the (micro)political,
emotional, uncertain and contested
dimensions of working life in community
coaching contexts. We felt as though
we were able to expand our knowledge
together and hopefully, by doing that,
we can further grow and stimulate the
interest and research into community
sports coaching.
There are plans to run two future
events. Dr Ben Ives and I have plans to
build on the success of the day through
both a follow-up conference in 2019
at Buckinghamshire New University,
and the development of an edited book
into community sports coaching due for
publication early next year. The CRiC
also has a biannual conference that is
held in conjunction with Sports Coaching
Review to be hosted by the University of
Worcester in 2019.
WHAT WERE
THE KEY
THINGS TO
TAKE FROM THE
CONFERENCE?
DO YOU THINK
IT STIMULATED
FURTHER
INTEREST IN THE
AREA?
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