Youth Development, Sport, and Youth Leadership

Professional preparation and in-service training for coaches, physical education teachers, youth workers, and other physical activity program leaders are key factors in the development of quality youth programs. Historically, professional preparation has been uneven and sometimes nonexistent. Moreover, it has paid less attention to, or even neglected altogether, the potential link between physical activity and life skills/values development, despite the rampant “sport builds character” rhetoric. The recent emergence of the field of youth development offers hope for a shift in professional preparation and eventually the quality of youth programs toward educating youth more holistically. The advent of youth development has been of particular interest to us, because youth development strongly promotes youth empowerment and leadership, just as we have tried to do for many years. Unfortunately, it took a while for the physical activity field to see the relevance of youth development for physical activity programs for kids, but this is now changing. The result is more support for the development of holistic youth leadership through sport, physical education, and other physical activities. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.