High Performance Manager for the Irish Ladies Golf Union (ILGU), David Kearney, will be presenting at the 2015 Coaches Circle from 27-28 July at Pravets Golf & Spa Resort.  Here, David explains more about his presentation as well as additional pre-event reading.

A young girl starts her journey into sport and finds she enjoys it greatly.

Community, friendships, challenges are all part of her life now and she really loves it. She gets good, improves, and moves her way along the pathway to land at High Performance level.

But is there a cost, a price to pay?

In our presentation we look at the possible roadblocks and perhaps how they can be avoided or at least smoothly navigated:

• Girls are not small boys. Attention and awareness on the difference is a must.
• The role of the parent…Enabler or Disabler – How can we help the parents of our athletes to understand what strategies may   be helpful and also those that may be destructive?
• Push/Pull: The dynamics of crafted encouragement.
• Onboarding and off boarding of players in a responsible manner. If the players know what is expected, then it is clear and De-selection becomes less contentious.
• Why mindfulness is so important in young people in today’s environment.
• Developing a like-minded coaching team, with the culture of the team in mind.
• Duty of care – Do we fully understand what this is?
• School work and its balance, why is this really important particularly in Europe. What is the culture of education in your set-up?
• Feedback… The need for it and a proper approach.
• Planning and de-briefing. A model for your mission.

Pre-Event Reading

• ‘From Teacher to Friend: The evolving nature of the coach-athlete relationship’, Philippe et al
• ‘A systematic review of social support in youth sport,” Daragh Sheridan, Pete Coffee, David Lavelle
• ‘Adolescent athletes’ learning about coping and the roles of parents and coaches,’ Katherine A. Tamminen, Nicholas L.Holt
• ‘Mission and Debriefing: A model from the Irish Defense Forces’
• ‘Beyond winning and losing: Guidelines for evaluating high performance coaches,’ Cliff Mallett and Jean Cote
• ‘From Pre-Elite to Elite: The pathway travelled by adolescent golfers,’ R.J Hayman, E.Borkoles, J.A Taylor, B.Hemmings, R.C.Polman

Books:

• Where ever you go, there you are,’ Jon Kabat-Zinn
• ‘Flagging the Screenager: Guiding Your Child Through Adolescence and Young Adulthood,’ Dr.Harry Barry and Enda Murphy
• ‘Flourishing,’ Dr.Maureen Gaffney

For more information on the 2015 Coaches Circle Visit the Event Hub Page: http://eur.pe/2015CoachesCircle