The volunteer and paid sport coaching ‘workforce’ is an essential pillar of the UK’s sport and physical activity system. Yet, many coaches report experiencing mental illness (44%) (Smith, et al., 2020), a variety of individual, interpersonal and organisational stressors (Norris, Didymus, & Kaiseler, 2017), and challenges such as facility access, interaction with athletes, and limits on their own skills (North, Piggott, Rankin-Wright, & Ashford, 2020).

Academic literature has recently reported stories of coaches in need of care. For instance, Roberts et al. (2019) detail a coach struggling with mental health and addiction, which were exacerbated by the demands of their coaching role. Cronin and Armour (2018) also describe how coaches may be burdened with emotional labour, experience exhaustion, and burnout as they seek to support athletes. Related to this, coaches are tasked with difficult challenges such as meeting performance outcomes, achieving a wide variety of social aims, and / or supporting athletes.

Here, the coach is positioned as a carer who understands and meets the sporting and personal needs of athletes. For this to be sustainable, however, coaches should not only be caregivers, but they themselves, should be well cared for. Thus, there are both ethical and performance imperatives to ensure that coaches are well supported.

In spite of this, our existing understanding of care in coaching is athlete-centric and we know little of coaches’ care experiences. Accordingly, UK Coaching commissioned Liverpool John Moores University to research UK coaches’ perceptions of care.

View and download the report to explore the findings.