Participation and Youth Sport Coaching Good Practice - An Overview and Reflection of the Active Sussex Coach Support Officers Scheme

In order to meet a wide variety of social policy objectives (such as health, educational attainment, community cohesion etc.), ensuring wide access to community and youth sport programmes remains an objective of many governments. In the UK, the post 2012 Olympic Legacy Strategy, overseen by Active Partnerships under the auspices of Sport England, promoted Sportivate and Satellite Clubs programmes (aimed at increasing participation levels) through most of the rest of the decade. In order to ensure minimum standards of operation and to develop the skills of the local coaching workforce, Active Sussex (one of the Active Partnerships) commenced a Coach Support Officer (CSO) scheme with the support of the University of Chichester from 2013 to (through various iterations) time of writing. Through a longitudinal reflection/summary of the various interventions and data collection points over the last nine years, we present an overview of this scheme. Further, we outline a clear philosophy, guidelines, and accompanying set of values that extol what can be considered good (best) practice for sustainable community sport and physical activity programmes.