The Compelling
Need
What are people in our community looking for that we don’t
seem to be offering? What’s needed to engage and delight even
those who’ve dropped out? In hope of stirring your creative
juices, we offer the following observations, based in part on an
informal needs assessment of community sport development and
delivery. While not wanting to constrain the scope of any new
initiatives and the breadth of potential benefits, it is our hope
that the big ideas supported through this Grassroutes Community
Sport Innovation Challenge will achieve positive outcomes such
as these.
With escalating obesity and mental health concerns overburdening
our healthcare system and compromising quality of life, the benefits
offered by community sport are more crucial than ever.
Yet community sport leaders across Alberta, and beyond, report
troubling drop-out rates, especially among youth.
There’s a sense that community sport is being pulled in the wrong
direction – serving the elite few at the expense of the many who
could benefit. Funneling kids into specialized sports early on rather
than developing broader multi-sport skills and experiences. Failing
to address participation barriers such as cost, lack of transportation,
safety concerns and inflexible scheduling. Increasingly, people are
looking for flexible, more social, less structured ways to get active...
to participate in community sport. Making do with unskilled
leadership. Failing to welcome newcomers and others with
particular challenges. Too focused on winning at whatever cost.
• Equip everyone to confidently choose ways to be active
through sport all life long.
- Ensure that everyone feels welcome in community
sports, including newcomers and those living on low
incomes.
- Start young. Embrace younger ages with fun activities
that teach physical literacy and offer multi-sport skill
experiences. Understand that early experiences in sport are
critically important.
- Engage youth in shaping public policy, strategies and
activities rather than simply providing for them.
- Put particular effort into critical transition points when
participation drops most, including the vital transition
from primary to secondary school.
- Pay special attention to local sport needs in remote,
isolated and indigenous communities.
- Focus on the local sport participation needs of seniors,
women and girls, and seek out inter-generational sport
opportunities.
- Renew community sport facilities and related
infrastructure, particularly to remove specific barriers that
limit access to participation.
Today’s overriding focus on elite sports is at odds with the
motivations driving many of our inactive young people—and at
odds with international “sport for all” evidence. Indeed, broadening
the focus to “sport for all” enhances not only overall participation,
but high performance success as well. Yet a seemingly inflexible
and increasingly fragmented sport governance and delivery system
makes it difficult to address those issues within current frameworks.
A national study undertaken by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in
Sport states: “While community sports are widely seen as an
important source of influence in the development of today’s children
and youth, Canadians are by no means sure this role is being fully
realized, and that children and youth are benefiting as much as they
could be. Fewer than one in five feel very confident that community
sports are, in fact, promoting positive values and character building
in children and youth as they feel it should be.”
• Shift from a top-down “elite sports” to a bottom-up
“sport-for-all” mindset.
- Balance challenge and competition with social goals,
including socializing and fun.
- Offer more flexible, less structured ways to get active
through sport, possibly after school.
- Be open to out-of-box approaches and emerging sports,
including those brought by newcomers to Canada.
- Give everyone opportunities to meaningfully participate.
Makadiff Sports wants to involve the grassroots in putting
community sport back on course.
“Community sport is not broken, but if we want sport to live up to its
true potential, we need to be intentional about ensuring that it reflects
our best values and that everyone has a chance to participate.” Sport
2.0: Towards A New Era in Canadian Sport, Sport Matters Group, 2011
Toward a culture of sport
engagement and participation
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