Basketball England and UK Coaching have launched the Leadership and Performance Programme, designed to support the development of aspirational female coaches.
These successful individuals will be influential, upcoming leaders, ready to amplify their strengths and inspire a generation of future athletes - and take their own coaching to the next level.
The free programme, which starts in November 2020, will evolve with collaboration and input from the coaches selected. As part of our #AllGirls campaign Basketball England will be creating a leadership community of women to impact performance and development throughout the country.
The programme will be based upon six advanced coaching workshops that will be practical, reflective and underpinned by expert research. Each coach will have a mentor, one-to-one support, full access to UK Coaching’s learning and development platform and throughout the programme their own coaching environment will receive coach development support. The majority of these are set to take place in the UK, with one being hosted over a weekend at an international coaching camp.
UK Coaching’s Coach Developer (Talent) Jenny Coady said:
“We’re over the moon to be working with Basketball England to launch this Leadership and Performance programme for the next generation of female basketball coaches.
“As a former international basketball player, I know first-hand what a well skilled, knowledgeable and influential coach can bring to an athlete’s life. Not only can they help you realise you and your team’s potential but they will illuminate your life with important life-skills and coping mechanisms encouraging lifelong participation.
“This exciting programme affords new coaching opportunities to these successful coaches whilst they bridge the confidence gap, feel supported and thrive in a sport they are passionate about and committed to. The aim is to look beyond this programme as a 12 month experience and to scaffold the learning and ensure graduate coaches of this programme continue to provide support to the next cohort of leadership and performance coaches coming through.
"It will not only make way for more visible female coaches as leaders within the game of basketball in this country but will also benefit development and performance immensely; with new ideas, skills and experiences to shape the game.”
Basketball England’s Delivery Manager Brian Aldred said:
“We recognise the need for the development of more high-quality female coaches in our coaching game plan.
“We are fortunate to have formulated an exciting partnership with UK Coaching as part of our #AllGirls initiative to work specifically to develop female coaches, especially as head coaches of National Basketball League clubs and teams.
“UK Coaching is a leader in providing tailored coaching programmes from grassroots through to high-performance basketball and will enhance the coaches learning through support, guidance and constructive challenges. It is great to be able to provide our female coaches with this fantastic opportunity to develop themselves as leaders and I am looking forward to seeing the selected coaches go through this fantastic learning experience over the next 12 months.”
Through its blended approach of one-to-one and group, face-to-face and virtual learning experiences – hosted through UK Coaching’s learning and development platform, ukcoaching.org – the programme will support the successful coaches through UK Coaching coach learning framework looking at areas of understanding self, individuals, their environment and their coaching practice.
Coaches interested in being shortlisted for the programme must fill out an application form and submit it to Basketball England.
The application deadline is 17 August 2020. All successful applicants will be notified by 1 September.
Following the World Association of Basketball Coaches (WABC) initiative to support the global basketball community of coaches during the COVID-19 pandemic period, a six week Women in Basketball Coaches Clinics series conducted by pre-eminent female coaches will be launched.
These clinics wholeheartedly support and endorse one of the FIBA's main strategic pillars for 2019-2023, Women in Basketball, which aims to promote opportunities for women in all areas of basketball including the role of female basketball coaches as leaders.
Featuring some of the top female coaches, such as Tara VanDerveer, Jan Stirling, Anne Donovan and Sandy Brondello, the clinics will feature different basketball topics ranging from Out of Bounds Plays to Experience in Coaching Top Teams.
Selected from its extensive video collection, some new clinics will also be made available through the Women in Basketball Coaches Clinics series.
Commencing on Tuesday, 14 July, the Women in Basketball Coaches Clinics series will be livestreamed on WABC's Facebook channel for six weeks, every Tuesday and Thursday at 1pm (UK time) with one clinic livestreamed on each of these days.
