Youth sport
This session several aspects related to working with children and adolescents. We will start with what the prevailing issues are when working with this population. First it was highlighted that children/ adolescents are not mini adults, and should not be treated as such. When dealing with this group special consideration should be given to the developmental stage they’re at (Knight et al., 2012), see below for an illustration of Piaget’s (1950) Model of Cognitive Development.
So what does this mean for working with young athletes? There are several barriers a sport psychologist may face such as the stigma around their involvement, lack of understanding, along with confidentiality concerns. However, getting to work with young athletes also has advantages. As suggested by Vealey et al. (2008) working with athletes during this stage, before they have developed dysfunctional responses can be an effective proactive approach to help them deals with adversities in a more effective manner going forward. It can also enhance the positive experiences they have with sport and contribute towards life skill development (Harwood, 2008). With skills being transferrable to other areas of their life such as school.
Now what can we do with this information? The research regarding best practice when dealing with youth athletes is limited, but improving (Harwood, 2008). A holistic approach that encompasses the influence of the parents, coaches and athlete is first recommended, with an emphasis on developing rapport. With caution used when assessing the needs of the child and to match interventions with their current capabilities.
Teams
In spite of the intuitive belief and anecdotal evidence, research regarding teams in sport has been fragmented at best (Carron, Martin, & Loughead, 2012). Below is a model developed by Carron & Spink (1993) for team-building in sport. It describes elements relating to both the team and an individual which influence team outputs such as cohesion.
So what do we need to look at when designing interventions working on team-building in a sport setting? There are three salient elements, shown in the figure below (McEwan and Beauchamp, 2014).
Teamwork training has been shown to be an effective way to foster cohesion and performance. The interventions appear to be particularly effective when they target multiple dimensions of teamwork eg. communication and include experiential activities eg. goal setting for team members to actively learn about, practise, and continually develop (McEwan et al., 2017). Practitioner should consider these elements going forward when working with teams but tread carefully as these findings were based on adult team performances or rooted in organisational psychology.