It has been a real privilege working on a project to help support football academies with their parental engagement programme.
Based on the latest research, our own experiences involved as a parent in an academy environment, multiple conversations with academy parents and coaches and what we have learnt in performance environments in other sports we have created a programme that reflects the unique needs of parents at different stages of the football academy journey.
With the success of any parental engagement programme based around a consistent alignment between club, coaches and parents we have developed a framework for football academies to work around in their own context.
Coach education is an important part of the programme and we have created a workshop to help support coaches with their understanding of the pressures that parents face, how they can build positive relationships with them and strategies for handling some of the inevitable pressure points that occur at various stages of the academy journey.
This is about to be rolled out in several academy environments and we are delighted to be getting things underway behind the scenes in preparation for the new season.
The programmes will consist of access to a customised WWPIS platform allowing clubs to add their own unique stamp and content for the whole club community with live and virtual sessions being run throughout the season.
Simon Ord, Head of Education at Derby County said, “It is a real privilege to be involved with WWPIS, and we are excited to be part of such a vital programme looking to provide a transparent and realistic parental engagement journey through the academy phases. At Derby County, we aim to embrace the support given by all our parents and at the same time guide and advise about the highs and lows involved in the process. Ultimately we want the boys to be happy and enjoy every possible opportunity and at the same time ensure parents are informed and understand how we manage their both on on and off the pitch.”
