Relationships, stability, and authenticity: How being yourself is ‘the’ key to community sport coaching and youth work

The fields of youth work and community sport development both use participation in sport as a means by which to engage young people and support behavioural change. This is achieved through social intervention programmes (whether part of broader or specific approaches, or individual, group, or community contexts), that specifically address community and psychological wellbeing. While extensive bodies of literature support effective practices in both fields, there are fewer related to the intersubjectivity between them. Given, in the UK context at least, the crossover of funded programmes, objectives, and practice in an applied and policy sense, this study sought to investigate what practitioners in both fields considered best practice relative to how they facilitated appreciable changes in pro-social behaviour and lifestyle trajectories. This study used semi-structured interviews with nine participants who all had experience of working in both community sport coaching and youth work. The findings suggest that youth workers and community sport coaches can fashion effective practice through working climates that actively ensure stability and connections, and that authentic projection of self, one that means practitioners must care and have the interest of the young people at heart, are essential to create positive psychological change through meaningful relationships. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.