Getting into the Game

Main findings from the survey:

• Most S4D programmes were in Africa, and within each region, programmes tended to be located in the higher-income countries.
• Programmes reported serving 10 to 14 year olds with poverty a common risk factor. They were attracted to programmes because of their use of sport.
• Practitioners reported that, much more than simply improving children’s sports participation and skills, they also hoped to enhance children’s soft skills and empowerment and reduce negative behaviours.
• Programmes reported that they were moderately effective to very effective in meeting their sport and non-sport objectives. Yet this perception was mostly based on self-evaluation.
• Staff strengths included relationships with children, especially when both were from the same community. Reported challenges included job-related issues such as lack of incentives and career development opportunities.

For more, download the full report.

S4D programmes that work for education are those that:

• Create a positive teaching and learning environment where participants and educators can engage in problem identification and problem-solving to enable critical thinking around the challenges that participants and their communities face.     
• Recruit, train and develop quality educators – whether they are teachers, coaches, mentors or volunteers, they need to facilitate positive relationships, support youth and teach the key competencies and skills. Their contracts and benefits are also key factors that need to be considered.                         
• Meaningfully engage key stakeholders and local experts, including participants, families, communities and schools, to meet programme goals. In one example, a programme brought participants back as mentors and coaches, to apply their contextual knowledge and experience.

Challenges to S4D programmes seeking to improve educational outcomes include:

• Designing and delivering quality education-focused S4D initiatives without local experts and stakeholders, such as schools, can prove challenging. For example, this can lead to learning materials not reflecting the needs of participants, inadequate training of implementing educators, or bullying being replicated in S4D initiatives.
• Overreach in setting objectives and attempts to meet multiple social goals rather than prioritizing
  goals based on target-group needs. Education interventions, coupled with other goals, can create
  challenges for the S4D organization in terms of available staff capacity. 
• Lack of research on and clarity around how sport can play a larger role in achieving educational outcomes, particularly in regard to academic performance.

Download the report summary and full report for policy recommendations on S4D for education.

S4D programmes that work for social inclusion are those that:

• Develop team sports that are participatory and yet can beadapted to meet the needs of all children and youth (in terms of format, rules, kit, equipment and facilities, etc.). 
• Create supportive, participatory environments that also publicly recognize the accomplishments of individuals from marginalized groups.
• Promote sports that challenge norms of ability and gender suitability, to remove social barriers that
  prevent marginalized children and young people from participating in sport.
• Build the capacity of marginalized young people and facilitate their participation in all aspects of the programme.

Challenges to S4D programmes seeking to improve social inclusion include:

• Sports cultures (e.g. masculinization of sport) that promote elitism and exclude certain children and
  youth (e.g. a specific gender or LGBTQi youth), thus acting as a barrier to inclusion.
• Family or community (societal) views that sport is not for marginalized children who historically have been excluded from sports or are new to sports.
• Pervasive structural inequality, deprivation and inaccessible sites that limit inclusion – whether because of cost or because of physical disability.
• A lack of good research on the effectiveness of different approaches to diversity.

Download the report summary and full report for policy recommendations on S4D for social inclusion.

S4D programmes that work for child protection are those that:

• Contribute to protection of children and young people through the development of agency via the promotion of social capital and relationships of support that can lead to education and employment.
• Are set in a safe space that provides a sense of security to socialize without stigmatization or
  scrutiny by authorities.
• Develop conflict resolution competencies and can encourage cooperative behaviour. For example, fair play with discipline for violations, such as penalties (as opposed to rewards) for overly aggressive behaviours.
• See coaches as role models for athletes to help reduce gender inequities and gender-based violence by generating discussions related to violence involving
  other athletes and increasing bystander intervention.

Challenges to S4D programmes seeking to promote child protection include:

• Lack of evidence on how sport can be used for child protection and the risk that localized interventions overstate potential effects on systemic drivers of violence, such as social norms and biases.
• Evidence that points towards inadequate regulation to safeguard the protection of children in sports.
• Understaffing of child protection-trained programmers.
• Some sports that continue to expose children to multiple forms of risk and violence that are normalized within the sports’ contexts and cultures (and supported by reward/power structures and hypermasculinity).

Download the report summary and full report for policy recommendations on S4D for child protection.

S4D programmes that work for children’s personal empowerment are those that:

• Deliver in autonomy-supportive and mastery-oriented sports climates. For example, programmes that use the Teaching Personal and Social Responsibility (TPSR) model to promote individual empowerment.
• Foster team sport and collective agency. Team sports supported by caring relationships with peers and programme adults (i.e. coaches and mentors) also work for the empowerment of individuals.
• Support participatory approaches using experiential learning and reinforcing community connections, such as with families or through civic engagement.
• Promote children’s civic engagement by encouraging the participation of families and communities.

Challenges to S4D programmes seeking to improve children’s empowerment include: 

• Existing negative social perceptions of certain groups of children and youth.
• Pervasiveness of the deficit model approach, which overemphasizes shortcomings and overlooks the strengths of children and young people – thereby undermining the promotion of empowerment and agency.
• Adultism, whereby adults assume children cannot or should not contribute to participatory activities (including design and implementation of S4D). This, again, discourages participation and can disempower.
• A lack of intentional design to ensure that programme processes facilitate empowerment.
• A lack of guidance/consensus on defining and measuring empowerment – as both an outcome and process, which can be difficult to disentangle.

Download the report summary and full report for policy recommendations on S4D for empowerment.