Dear all,
I hope you are all well? I also hope that you are enjoying working with the young people in your environments and local communities. The work you do is very important and should never be underestimated!
UK Active moving things forwards:
On March 12thUK Active launched a new consultation process to shape the future of children’s activity across the UK. The process will develop a detailed and far reaching report which seeks to gain opinion and information from a range of organisations and people invested in helping the health and well-being of young people. In essence all key stake holders that represent the broad spectrum of society who want to support young people in pursuing healthy and physically enriching lives.
On the 12thSeptember 2018 at the UK Active summit the report will be published. Chair of UK Active Baroness Tanni Grey- Thompson’s comments relating that the report should be ‘from play-ground to policy’and that ‘It takes a whole community to raise a child’really resonate with me.
When I reflect on all of the coaches and environments that have contributed to my life in sport and physical activity it is very humbling. I often wonder what I would be doing and where I would be if it had not been for key teachers, coaches, friends and mentors let alone the influence of my family who nudged, supported and guided me. I am sure you feel similarly about your experiences? Sadly not every young person in the UK gets those positive experiences.
I believe we as an association can have our say and make a contribution both with our thoughts but clearly with our actions helping young people move betterin the exciting, engaging and enabling training environments we aim to provide.
The three Key areas of discussion and information gathering that UK Active want to analyse and identify relate to:
- The organisations and institutions that children in the UK experience
- The physical environments that children grow up in
- The social environment that children interact with
Key Questions:
Next month I will endeavour to give some views on the three key areas identified above but before I try to offer something I am keen to know what you think? When this article is posted on the YSCA website please take the opportunity to comment with your thoughts.
Let’s support UK Active in their consultation and think about how we can contribute positively with reflection and then ACTION!
Some key questions to consider?
- What should the ‘physical environment’ children grow up in be like?
- What is a child’s ‘physical environment’currently like?
- What learning and training environment do you create? Should we create?
- Do you think that the Social environmentand influence of the information/communication age enriches or damages young people’s physical health?
- What is ‘missing’that would help us tackle childhood obesity and growing youth mental health problems more effectively?
I really look forward to seeing some responses and hope you feel that you can and are contributing every day. As the great quote suggests ‘if you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito!’
An interesting end to the Month!
Finally I wanted to share that I finished this month with a great experience. I had the privilege to work with UK organisation Let Me Play in their support of the ‘Champions of tomorrow’ project from India.
We worked with some of India’s finest young track and field young athletes who have been given the opportunity to travel to the UK and complete a range of sessions with UK based coaches. It was wonderful to work with such a committed group of young people at Loughborough University and carry out some speed and power testing. In my session we looked at their acceleration mechanics and obtained some data for them and their coaches. It was a great morning and I was delighted to test the fastest young athleteI have ever seen run through my timing gates! Brilliant! Wonderful to see these projects developing around the world! As I understand it these young people were chosen through a six city talent Identification project. I really enjoyed working with this group and I wish all of them and their coaches the best of luck when they travel back to India.
I hope you all have a great start to the summer!
Regards,
YSCA Chairman
