UK COACHING AND PLYMOUTH BASKETBALL CLUB LAUNCH RECRUITMENT DRIVE IN RESPONSE TO POST-PANDEMIC HEALTH CHALLENGES
UK Coaching – the UK’s leading charitable organisation for physical activity and sports coaches – is leading a nationwide recruitment drive to expand the coaching workforce. The initiative will see the organisation engage with several of the nation’s leading sports over the next ten years, to create and advance more coaches and ensure the nation has more opportunities to be active.
The partnership will see UK Coaching joining forces with a number of partners to support them to overcome their specific challenges around coaching recruitment and retention, with a view to significantly increasing the coaching workforce over the next ten years.
The announcement comes at the start of UK Coaching Week – the annual national awareness campaign which empowers athletes, coaches and the public to celebrate great coaching.
Despite individual challenges, common themes have emerged around the need to inspire and create more opportunities for young people into coaching, as well as those from diverse communities. The collaboration will ensure coaching becomes more accessible, inclusive and innovative than ever before.
Coaches encourage people to be more active, more often, and positively influence lives and communities. A total of 6.6 million people (14% of the adult population) gave up their time to support others to be active from November 2020-21. However, this is a fall of more than 3.1 million people compared to the previous year*, and follows a drop in numbers in the years prior to the pandemic.
To support the recruitment drive, UK Coaching has launched ‘#Born2Coach’ - an initiative that aims to significantly boost the coaching workforce by inspiring people to become coaches and empowering current coaches to enhance their skills.
“As we learn to live with COVID and seek to recover from the challenges of the last couple of years, we want to play our part in supporting more people taking part in physical activity and sport. Coaches will be an important conduit for engaging a broader range of people from more communities in physical activity and sport, which will improve the nation’s health and happiness.”
“We are proud to be spearheading this industry-wide partnership to provide deeper insight into the life of a coach, and what great coaching looks and feels like. With the help of our network of physical activity and sports organisations we will empower existing coaches and recruit the next generation of coaches.”
Ben Roper, Head of Coaching and Player Development for Plymouth Basketball Club said:
“As a volunteer run club, we know how important great coaches are to the work we do, aiming to inspire others into the sport of basketball. We have been fortunate that our coaches have returned from lock down with renewed passion for coaching. However, we are always on the lookout for more coaches to help us grow our provision. We are keen to hear from anyone who is interested in working with young people to help them stay active, healthy and develop a love for basketball.”
“This week we will bring you some of the #born2coach stories of the great coaches at our club and how coaching benefits them. In addition, all our coaches will be undertaking the UK Coaching Duty of Care badge in the coming weeks. This is designed to equip coaches with the knowledge and skills to provide great coaching experiences to others, as well as support coaches to begin to better look after themselves.”
To find out more about how you can get into coaching, visit www.ukcoaching.org/born2coach
If you are interested in learning more about coaching for Plymouth Basketball Club please email hello@plymouthbasketball.co.uk
To find out more about how to become a qualified basketball coach, visit https://www.basketballengland.co.uk/get-involved/learn-and-get-qualified/be-a-coach/
