Thirteenth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

Parents from low-income families experience several barriers in organizing sports participation for their children. Although municipal policies are focussed on offering support to alleviate the financial burden, for registration fees and outfits for example, parents indicate that they experience many more barriers. Examples are time constraints and difficulties with planning, multi-problems and other priorities, lack of transport and the route to the club being too long and unsafe. Furthermore, parents experience barriers to actually apply for financial support. In the Netherlands, municipal and private funds offer financial support for children aged 18 or below from families with 125% or less from minimum income. Parents indicate that they don’t always know financial support is available or they feel ashamed to apply. When parents do apply, they find the procedures, which differ from city to city and from fund to fund, very complex. During the application procedures, which can be online or via an intermediary, parents often have to submit many documents and income data. Furthermore, yearly budgets are limited because of which not all registration costs are covered. Other costs for outfits, sports attributes, transport or Topsport fees are also not always covered. Lastly, not all sports clubs are affiliated with the clubs. Therefore, children from low-income families cannot participate at all sports clubs of their preference.