Part 1: The Coach Developer, What is it?
Coach Developer Awareness and the Role of the Coach Developer
from the Reflection Journal for CDC-41, Sport Ireland Coaching course
1. Coach Developer Awareness
(related to assignment 1b plus Anti-doping course)
Our first topic was “just what on earth have we gotten ourselves into?”
The whole course is about becoming a coach developer, rather than just a coach who is coaching other coaches and they kind of simply soak up knowledge or techniques to add to their own toolbox.
I like the new model of coach development that Sport Ireland’s put in place1:
The goal is to train up coach developers from a non-sport specific standpoint (I was on a course with Olympic handball coaches, badminton coaches, triathlon, gymnastics, Ladies GAA, and a ton of boxing coaches) to give them the tools to ensure they give coaches in their respective sports ample practice coaching, in their workshops. I *love* the role the Coach Developer Assessors play, in giving some objective feedback on how a coach development session has run, to get a sort of 360° feedback and a perspective we aren’t always able to achieve
At the outset, we covered a lot of the basic pieces we need to have in place before we begin developing coaches… things like legal requirements (safeguarding if you’re working with U16s, vulnerable adults, or sports in which the coach is required to physically touch their athletes, Garda vetting/background checks, here in Ireland), an awareness of the inclusiveness of their trainings for a wide variety of people from a wide variety of backgrounds and circumstances, and the policies of their sport’s code of conduct. Sports can be an emotional place, so even for seasoned coaches and coach developers, it can serve as a useful grounding to just remind ourselves what we’ve signed up to do and our main purpose.
In the main contract for the CDC course it promised a safe haven, which, again, is something worth stating out loud even in the coaching workshops we’ll deliver… it’s so vital to make sure all participants feel they can be themselves without fear of judgement, because it’ll allow for the most growth. It’s one of my favorite things from another course I teach that I need reminding of every day: “Be observant and keep an open mind.” I feel like I need that one laser-engraved on the inside of the retinas…
2. Role of the Coach Developer
After the setup, we got to the role of the Coach Developer, itself, and some of the main qualities, skills, and competencies of a Coach Developer, and how they relate to each other.
Qualities
The Qualities are just some of our personal attributes that might help us be successful coach developers. These are things like being patient, open-minded, adaptable, creative, logical, innovative, resourceful, versatile, thoughtful… basically a bucket of adjectives that describe us. All the things many coaches are, and maybe what drew us to coaching in the first place… as a place to exercise all of those qualities.
What I Do Well
Personally, I think I’m relatively patient, enthusiastic, adaptable, supportive, and thoughtful. Patience and enthusiasm I suspect are signs of lesser intelligence, for sure; I’m just happier waiting things out, and am very enthusiastic about simple little stuff. And in all my time working at or with Apple, there is a high premium on folks who can adapt to each and every situation or constraint that’s put on you. I’m sure I had it before I went in, forever years ago, but the experience definitely gave me plenty of opportunity to practice it.
What I Would Love to Do Better
I think, of any of the qualities, I’d love to keep working at being open-minded, more creative. I do think I can be both, at times, but I think I could always be a bit more open-minded and creative… especially in Ireland, we don’t always have all the gear, so it really helps to look at what you do have in the hall and figure out how your coaches can put it to the best use.
Skills
The Skills we need, as coach developers, are things we do well, or might have expertise in, so more verb-like than qualities, which are more like adjectives. Listening, questioning, observing, planning, note-taking, problem-solving, managing time, demonstrating, analyzing, evaluating, giving or generating feedback, managing groups, presenting, facilitating, all of these are pretty decent skills to have as a coach developer.
What I Do Well
I don’t think I’m a bad listener, I tend to enjoy the planning and solving problems piece, and I’ve gotten better over the years at presenting, generating feedback, and managing groups.
What I Would Love to Do Better
But one thing that first weekend showed was that I’d love to work more on the facilitation aspect of things to encourage participation and engagement in sessions (volleyball or otherwise). I’m also well aware that I need more work on conscious time management and group management… it’s all too easy for enthusiasm and careful (but maybe rigid, in terms of variables for a session) planning to just run right over both of those. So I know that I’ll need to build in some extra group management ideas as fallbacks if a group isn’t the size of skill level that I expect, and the same goes for time management… it’s all well and good to draw up a good session in my head at the laptop with imaginary coaches being developed who can blaze through fourteen different concepts or strategies, but it’s an entirely different thing making sure those coaches get a chance to get coaching and really come away with a good understanding of what it is they’re intended to get out of a session.
One of the key things I found, about putting on that coach developer hat, was the emphasis on getting the coaches coaching as quickly as possible. You have to almost get a little bit zen with it, not just allowing the coaches to get coaching, but quickly designing tasks where they must get involved, as that’s the quickest and best way for them to learn.
Competencies
Competencies are where we see practical application of skills… in some frameworks, like the International Coaching Federation2, it looks like they don’t differentiate too much between skills and competencies, and they’re not too far off. We’ll certainly use a number of skills to achieve competency in areas.
Our Task 1C asked us to relate skills and qualities that would support the following five competencies that a Coach Developer should exhibit:
Optimizing resources/facilities that are appropriate for the group
Creating and maintaining a learner-centered environment
Optimizing learner opportunities to assimilate content and practice skills
Providing clear and effective feedback to all learners
Delivering interactive online content effectively
Of course, it doesn’t stop there, and we had some nice additions in our workgroups, like (and these are paraphrased):
Mentoring/supporting coaches
Sharing knowledge and experience in their sport
Help surface gaps and needs for coaches
Open up a wider network of support to coaches
Two of the key competencies I want to work on are optimizing learner opportunities to assimilate content and practice skills — just get the coaches coaching! — and providing clear and effective feedback to all learners.
I like the image of the toolbox; we can work on all of these qualities and skills to help support variety of competencies and each one becomes a tool we can use for a given job (the competency, or delivery of one).
Before they used the language “Tutor Trainers”, “Tutors”, and then coaches and participants, but it seems like it was more sport-specific, from the diagram we were shown… The new model just has many more supports in place.
ICF Core Competencies - https://coachingfederation.org/credentials-and-standards/core-competencies