Community Sport Novice Coach Mandate

In an initiative to strengthen grassroots football across the country Football Canada, this past summer at its Annual General Meeting in Ottawa, Ontario, approved The Community Sport Novice Coach Mandate.

As per the mandate, all coaches, regardless of specialization must be community coach trained by 2021 if they are instructing athletes under the age of 14.

For the training itself, coaches must complete their education following the Community Sports Pathway.  It involves completing the Community Sport E-Learning and an eight hour Community Sport workshop which focuses on making ethical decisions, fundamental movement skills, practice planning, communication skills and more.

The training has been broken down in three stages based on the next three years.  In 2019, all heads coaches as well as 50 percent of a team’s staff must be Community Coach Trained prior to the beginning of the season.  The next year (2020), all head coaches and 75 percent of their staff are required to have the training prior to the beginning of the season.

By 2021, all coaches regardless of position on staff has to have their community sports training. The exception is any new coaches on a staff, with the exception of the head coach, has a one year grace period to complete it.

“This mandated coach training is an amazing step forward for our sport,” Aaron Geisler, Manager of Development said.  “This allows for standardization while providing coaches as well as athletes under 14 years of age with the necessary tools for them to succeed on and off the field.”

“Our grassroots coaches are the lifeblood of our sport and we want to ensure that they have the best tools to succeed on the field. Many of our grassroots coaches are parents or new coaches and the community sport training will help provide them the confidence to teach young Canadian’s our great sport.”

COMMUNITY SPORT NOVICE COACH MANDATE:

1. All community coaches (U14) regardless of disciplinedmust become community coach trained by 2021
   1. 2021: All Coaches coaching athletes under the age of 14 must be community sport trained all new coaches with the exception of the head coach has a 1 year grace period to complete the training.
   2. 2020: All Head Coaches and 75% of the Staff must be Community Coach Trained
   3. 2019: All Head Coaches and 50% of the staff must be Community Coach Trained
      1. Community Sport Pathway:
         1. Community Sport E-Learning
         2. 8 hour Community sport workshop

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