Coach Life: Coaching for All

Tuesday 2nd March 2021

Article

by UK Coaching

Video case studies with coaches from diverse ethnic communities and from lower socio-economic backgrounds, investigating the importance of embracing diversity at all levels of sport and showcasing the benefits that diversity can bring

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Research underpins everything we do at UK Coaching and our latest research project – exploring the lived experience of coaches from ethnically diverse communities and lower socio-economic backgrounds, in practice – was undertaken to run in conjunction with our 2021 Research Series.

We enlisted the help of coaches from a range of different sports and backgrounds, who told us about their experiences of coaching – and showed us too.

Find out how we did it:

And we have captured their key insights in three videos, aligned to our Research Series theme of Coaching for All.

The Coach Life: Coaching for All series investigates individuals’ experiences of coaching through three diversity lenses: Ethnic Diversity; Socio-Economic Diversity and Gender & Ethnic Diversity.

UK Coaching’s Director of Coaching Emma Atkins says that the theme of Coaching for All demonstrates UK Coaching’s commitment to diversity, and its promise to ensure that coaching is accessible for people from all backgrounds, abilities and motivations, and that the people involved and supporting the coaching workforce are representative of the population of the UK.

We are all too acutely aware of the inequality of opportunity which currently exists in all walks of life, and none more so than in sport and physical activity. To make a lasting change for good for the sector we need to involve everyone within our coaching family and ensure the support and experiences that we provide are open and enjoyable for all.

Emma Atkins

“It is a collective responsibility; we cannot do this alone. With this collaborative approach we aim to keep our own promise to support everyone to get involved in coaching, whether as a participant, coach, manager or developer.

During this series we will be enabling all to share findings and thinking so that together we can learn, test, challenge and support the application of coaching across the UK. We have such a breadth and depth of applied research in coaching in the UK and look forward to listening, learning, sharing findings and enabling everyone to play their role in tackling inequalities wherever they exist.

“A huge thank you from UK Coaching to all those who have committed to sharing so generously and we look forward to hearing how this provokes new innovation for all in coaching.”

The videos below highlight coaches’ journeys to get involved in coaching, the barriers they have faced or challenges they have experienced, and the impact coaching has had on their lives.