Levelling the Playing Field are linking up with the Empowering Coaching™ team to offer training in maximising participants’ motivation, engagement and wellbeing.
The principles of Empowering Coaching™ are based on over 25 years of research by founder, Professor Joan Duda (pictured below left), who specialises in motivational psychology and sports coaching and is one of the most cited researchers and practitioners in the field. Joan also leads the University of Birmingham’s research team that works on Levelling the Playing Field.
Enhancing the quality of a participant’s motivation enables them to overcome multiple barriers to engagement and ensures enjoyment in sport. In a ‘Sport for Development’ context, they are also able to get maximum social and emotional value from participating. Empowering Coaching’s training is about creating the optimal motivational climate for this to happen.
The Empowering Coaching™ training programmes are based on years of research with coaches around the world, from grassroots to Olympic level, across many sports and performing arts. They have evolved over the decades and have been rigorously tested by practitioners on the frontline (including StreetGames).
The philosophy and principles in this programme draw from many well-supported theories, including Self-Determination Theory that links high quality of motivation to three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence and relatedness (i.e. sense of belonging). Meeting these three needs is the key to achieving optimal motivation, engagement and wellbeing through sport.
During the training, coaches will be able to identify good practice, understand why it’s effective, and challenge their own methods to better understand what is empowering (and what elements may be disempowering) for their participants.
“We know not all motivation is the same,” explains founder Joan. “Understanding the quality of the motivation, or the ‘why’ one participates, is really important. The activity must bring them something of value; social interaction, a distraction, fun, a challenge or something they’re good at for young people to enjoy and keep coming back”.
“The way sport operates at the moment, the motivational aspect is left to chance or a coach’s intuition. We can raise the game by helping those out on the pitch understand more about precisely how they do things and self-reflect on how they can do it even better”.
“We never go in and tell people what they’re doing wrong. There’s not a single coach or leader who walks this earth who has never faced motivational challenges. We have them reflect on those challenges as well as describe their experiences with young people who are optimally motivated.
“We guide them along, help them recognise the positive aspects of what they already do, understand why these behaviours work, then identify things which may be disempowering and work on realistic strategies to address them.
“The conversations between coaches in our workshops are so rich. By the end, they’re almost using different terminology and you can see the building blocks for positive change being laid.”
University of Birmingham Research Fellow, Dr Hannah Baumer (pictured), will be helping to deliver the Empowering Coaching™ training with Levelling the Playing Field’s specialist delivery partners.
She added: “Coaches in the LtPF network may be doing the right things but may not necessarily know what it is they’re doing that’s right. Helping them identify that is affirming and confidence-building and gives them something tangible they can pass on to the next generation of potential leaders in their organisations. For those that feel they need more input and inspiration, Empowering Coaching™ will help identify how that should look as well.”
Joan concludes: “We need people across the coaching spectrum who create motivational climates that ‘set the stage’ for participants to feel better about themselves. Our training is about raising the game, increasing understanding and making that environment the best it can possibly be.”
Details of Empowering Coaching’s training offer to Levelling the Playing Field’s specialist delivery partner network will be released soon.