Ninth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

This original sports-based youth development program out of a public university in the western United States was designed to increase attributes of self-responsibility and resiliency in at-risk youth in response to prevalent issues concerning youth delinquency in the surrounding urban communities. Program coaches provided at-risk youth opportunities to learn, develop, and practice positive behavior and attributes of self-responsibility (e.g., self-control, honestly, empathy, forethought, resisting negative peer influence) and resiliency (i.e., autonomy, social skills, and hope) through specific and intentional modified games/physical activity. To translate mentioned attributes from the abstract to practice, coaches identified precise outcomes, designed games/physical activities to explicitly address attributes, and constructed opportunities for inherent, emergent behaviors utilized for feedback and discussion between coaches and youth. Youth participants met for programming twice a week with pedagogy and community leadership graduate and undergraduate coaches over two eight-week sessions in the summer of 2017 and spring of 2018. Coaches experienced difficulties 1) designing activities to explicitly address abstract attributes, and 2) focusing delivery and feedback on behavioral skills rather than motor skills/performance during the first session. In response, a conceptual framework was developed that aimed to increase access, maintain deliberateness, and provide tangibility for coaches designing programming. Coaches employed the framework during second session program planning and unanimously reported increased comprehension of outcome goals, improved adherence to intention, and optimized planning. This framework has yielded program improvement and provided valuable assistance to coaches planning game/physical activity delivery for enhancing attributes of self-responsibility and resiliency in at-risk youth.