Current Issues and Future Perspectives in Youth Sports

Dear Colleagues,

Youth sport has great potential to bring positive outcomes for children and adolescents regarding physical and mental wellbeing and social development. Being active in sport from a young age supports the development of an active lifestyle, preserving these positive effects in the long term. Moreover, it may build the foundation for participating in elite sports. However, there are a lot of challenges within youth sport to ensure a positive and safe sport climate that supports children’s development and keep youngsters involved. This Special Issue focuses on current issues in youth sport and identifies future perspectives to create better youth sport experiences.   

In order to create the best learning environment for children in sports and to create coherent or shared understandings, we use the Youth Sport Compass’ as a basis for this Special Issue. This compass is based on four pillars (i.e., scientific concepts): the development-oriented, the motivational, the caring and the socially safe climate. The development-oriented climate is about properly assessing what a child/young person can do and, above all, what he/she needs to develop well as an athlete and as a person. The motivational climate concerns contributing to the intrinsic motivation of children by coaching throughout the process and giving positive and concrete feedback. The caring environment regards creating an environment where children feel that they are cared for and valued for who they are. The socially safe climate is a climate in which a child can be him- or herself with dignity and unthreatened in an environment that guarantees psychosocial and physical safety.  For a short animation, click here. Attention must be paid to all four pillars in order to achieve the best climate in youth sport: a pedagogical climate.

This Special Issue is supported by ICOACHKIDS (www.icoachkids.org), a non-profit global movement led by the International Council for Coaching Excellence that promotes sport policy, education, and practice that puts kids first. ICOACHKIDS brings together a large network of youth sport stakeholders and develops free educational resources for coaches of all sports. The ICOACHKIDS Pledge, 10 Golden Principles of Youth Sport, guides ICOACHKIDS’s work, which in addition to the Youth Sport Compass provides a further theoretical and practical framework to guide submissions to this Special Issue.

Dr. Irene Faber
Prof. Dr. Nicolette Schipper-van Veldhoven
Guest Editors

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