Young Netballers could be the beneficiaries of three netball centres offering a parent and coaches workshop on Good Sports.

Good Sports is all about creating positive sporting experiences for young people by supporting and educating the key adult influencers in children's sport like parents, coaches, officials etc.  Eighty coaches and parents attended five workshop presentations run in three centres - Mangonui, Northern Wairoa and Whangarei. The presentation focused on raising awareness on the impact of adults behaviour on children’s sport, from training, to game day and the car ride home. “The aim was to impact the experiences that young people have with sport and we know that it is not always positive – this in turn will influence whether they return the following year or continue with sport long term,” says workshop facilitator Grant Harrison, Coaching Lead from Sport Northland. 

Feedback was positive with several participants indicating that they hadn’t really thought a lot about the impacts of comments, approaches and behaviours. Some feedback from participants included

• “the workshop opened my eyes to a number of things we do as parents/coaches”
• “definitely a need out there as we see the negative stuff on the side-line and in ourselves and we think of it as normal”
• “I hadn’t thought about it too much, but a kid’s view is different to mine – this has made me re-think a bit”

Participants agreed to take on a Good Sports advocate role back at their centre where they use social media to highlight some of the good things that they observe happening to create positive sporting environments. Visible messaging on what could be said before, during and after a game to support the development of players will appear in Netball Centres and attempts will be made to ensure the voices of the young people are heard. Further presentations are planned as a key take-home message was ‘more people need to hear this.’

“It is a great start” says Harrison and he goes onto say “word of mouth and social media are keys in getting the Good Sports messages out there.”

For more information on Good Sports contact Grant Harrison – granth@sportnorth.co.nz

To support these messages Northland will be hosting Wayne Goldsmith next month. Wayne is an experienced coach and has worked with many teams and athletes at all levels over several years. He is passionate about the sporting experience and a session is planned for coaches, parents and players on Thursday 13 September from 6.00pm – 8.00pm. To register email josephy@sportnorth.co.nz