Challenges and Opportunities for Community Sport Coach Development: An Appreciative Inquiry Project

Community coaches form the lifeblood of community sport provision working with a broad range of participants to achieve outcomes in traditional formalised sport, physical activity, sport for health, and sport for development settings. Yet, research suggests community coaches can feel isolated, undervalued, and disconnected from support (Cronin et al., 2023; UK Coaching 2022). They can feel overwhelmed by the tasks involved in coaching community sport including practical sport delivery in public settings and ‘hidden’ work such as planning, organising and orchestrating individuals (Carroll, 2023; Cronin, et al., 2023; Sport Wales, 2022). It is apparent that community coaches would benefit from support. Personalised support is likely to come through key personnel in coaches’ own settings (i.e., localised) (Cronin, et al., 2023; Sport Wales, 2022; UK Coaching, 2022). However, little is known about how community coaches and local coach developers might be supported. Therefore, UK Coaching commissioned Northumbria University and Liverpool John Moores University to use appreciative inquiry-framed workshops to further our understanding of community sport coaches’ and coach developers’ everyday challenges and pilot a process of support for them.