Every youngster should be encouraged by other players and NOT be teased or made feel nervous in a negative sense when partaking in sport. Every club should provide opportunities for youngsters to interact and make friends and encourage youngsters to do so. This should be done formally (organised, planned, evaluated) and informally (unplanned).
Working actions
Actions for coaches/trainers
- Organize sport lessons right after school together with friends and schoolmates.
- Involve and invite friends of the youngsters during lessons.
- Use icebreaker games to break down social barriers between youngsters in the club.
Actions for clubs
- Promote practices to strengthen the role and involvement of each member of the team, as well as policies to ensure that no one is left alone.
- Emphasis on zero tolerance on bullying and harassment in sport.
- Introduce a “buddy system” to ensure that new players feel welcome and part of the club.
Tools
Card Games Keep Youngsters Involved
The most important tool in the toolkit are the card games, developed for the Erasmus+ Sport project Keep Youngsters Involved.
These card games help you to get to know more about how to implement actions in the sport club to keep youngsters (12-19 year) involved and prevent them from dropout.
The different card games can help professionals who work with youngsters in sport, young adults and sport clubs how to improve their policy on youth, and help by creating a sport club action plan.
Cards
In total there are 169 action cards. For every factor you can choose a variety of cards. You can choose the cards and print* them in colour to be able to use them. Cut them out and they are ready to be used.
* best printer settings: choose page sizing ‘fit’
Card Games
There are 3 different cards games:
- Card game 1: Choose your cards
- Card game 2: Roleplay Keep Youngsters Involved
- Card game 3: Go Fish
Download the toolkit with card games
Quick scan Y-score for sports clubs
How youth-oriented is your sports club? In other words, is your club accessible and attractive to young members? Does the club give enough consideration to the wishes, needs and possibilities of the various groups of young people? And especially, how can this be improved?The Y-score answers these questions. It is an instrument that quickly and easily gives insight into how youth-oriented your club is. It helps you to look at your club through a young person’s ‘pair of glasses’.