Every youngster should understand what to expect when participating in a sports club. These expectations should cover the physical, social and mental aspects of participation. Every club should understand how youngsters’ expectations relating to participation differ depending on age, sex, culture and socio-economic status, and where possible cater for these variations in expectations and needs.
Working actions
Actions for coaches/trainers
- Hold an information session highlighting the main elements essential for the team/sport.
- Be clear on the type and culture of the sport club: competitive, recreation, fun etc.
- Provide youngsters with a clear layout of what they must do (i.e. plan for training, warm up and take part).
Actions for clubs
- Create opportunities to discuss with youngsters and parents the practice, sport and club culture issues in order to develop real and adjusted expectancies.
- Develop good communication between the coach and stakeholders about the club key messages.
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’.