Calls to Action for Youth Sports
Policy
Closing the Policy Gap in Youth Coaching
Actions that call for stronger state and national systems to support youth sports by requiring coach training, aligning with public health goals, funding local programs, and using shared standards to ensure all kids have access to safe, well-coached experiences.
Advance Public Policy and Oversight
Area of Focus
Recognizing that policy is a blunt instrument often more suited to compliance rather than quality assurance, it still can advance efforts to bring needed oversight and reform to the youth sport sector. Importantly, policy can bring strategic coherence across youth and school sports to ensure programs meet quality standards, coaches meet training standards, and processes are public and transparent.
Call to Action
Create State-Level Youth Sport Oversight
Call to Action
Bolster Required Training for School-Based Coaches
Call to Action
Advance Federal Reform to Prioritize Youth Sports
Make Youth Sports a Public Health Issue
Area of Focus
Making sports a public health issue means recognizing physical activity as essential to preventing chronic diseases, improving mental health, and promoting overall well-being. Integrating sports into public health policy could make policymakers more amenable to addressing program quality and coaching training requirements. This shift to include sports as a solution to public health crises can reduce healthcare costs, increase social cohesion, and foster healthier, more resilient populations.
Call to Action
Create a Youth Sports Public Health Messaging Campaign
Develop New Financing Levers
Area of Focus
Any solution to improve the youth sports sector, including universal coach training requires revenue to implement. The financial resources exist within the sector to solve this problem, but there needs to be a revenue or taxation model that incentivizes developmentally appropriate and health-supportive practices and discourages behaviors that exploit and harm youth and families.
Call to Action
Form a Youth Sports Tax & Revenue Policy Consortium
Policy: Our Vision for the Future
We envision a youth and school sports system in which every coach is trained and every young athlete is safe and supported to thrive. Federal and state governments will play an active role in charting a vision for the role of youth sports in aligning with other public sector and public health aims; setting and enforcing coaching and program quality standards; developing revenue streams, and holding youth sport organizations accountable for meeting the developmental needs of young people in their care.
Here’s how we make it happen in 5-10 years:
- A standalone federal agency, separate from the USOPC, will oversee youth and grassroots sports. Given current divestment at the federal level, this aim may be many years away. However this goal was called for by the 2024 Commission on the State of the U.S. Olympics and Paralympics and existing federal policy guidance and infrastructure. For instance, the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and the National Youth Sports Strategy provide starting points.
- The SafeSport Act is strengthened and sets a baseline for all coaches. The SafeSport Act will be amended to give states and youth sports organizations more clarity and latitude to report and prevent abuse. All coaches, at minimum, will be background checked, in alignment with Stage 1 of the Million Coach Challenge Continuum of Coach Qualifications (MCC-CCQ).
- State oversight and accreditation bodies advance coach licensing. Each state, in collaboration with the federal agency, will create a licensing and oversight body to accredit youth sport organizations. These entities will ensure youth sports programs meet quality standards, including coach training. Visible licensing and accreditation systems similar to those used in childcare, will ensure youth sports programs and coach credentials can be verified by parents, funders, and community members.
- A baseline for school-based coaching standards is established. State education departments and state athletic associations will adopt robust minimum coaching standards (aligned with the MCC-CCQ) for all school coaches and volunteers across all grade levels. These standards will include training on positive youth development and mental health, with annual renewal.
- Sport be positioned as a solution to broader public sector aims. Decisionmakers at all levels understand the value of sports as a pro-social activity that can deliver on a broad range of public sector and public health aims including violence prevention, academic engagement, and physical and mental health.
- Sustainable funding mechanisms support ongoing coach development and program quality. Federal and state agencies, as well as associated licensing and accreditation systems, will be funded by tax mechanisms and revenue consistent with recommendations generated by a newly formed Youth Sports Tax & Revenue Policy Consortium.
Clear, well-designed public policies can raise the standard of coach training and ensure that all youth have access to trained, supportive coaches.
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Thank You to Our Policy Working Group
Chair(s): Julie McLeary, Ph.D., Univ. of Washington; Dawn Anderson-Butcher, Ph.D., OSU LiFEsports
Members: Sam Brown, Univ. of Washington; Kristen Dieffenbach, Ph.D, West Virginia Univ.; Brian McFadden, National Parks & Recreation Assn; Peter Feldman, Laureus USA
Contributors: Doug Ute, Ohio High School Athletic Association; Rachelle Patel, Laureus USA