Abstract
Over the years, sport programmers have struggled to marry the development of excellence in youth sport while encouraging positive participation and personal development (Côté & Hancock, 2016). To assist in bridging this gap, the introduction of physical literacy to sport and physical education has been introduced through the Canadian Sport for Life model. The definition of physical literacy not only includes physical and cognitive outcomes, but also psychological outcomes. Within a youth sport context, coaches and other sport leaders (i.e., volunteers, administrators) are taxed with providing positive and well-rounded sport experiences to children and youth. Coaches and program leaders tend to focus mostly on the development of physical competence but are less confident in the delivery of psychological concepts (McCallister et al., 2000), including those related to the growth of physical literacy (i.e., confidence, motivation). This presentation will discuss aspects of child development and the role of coaches/leaders in understanding physical literacy from a psychological perspective. The presentation will also review a resource, Project SCORE (www.projectscore.ca), that can be used as a tool to help coaches and program leaders to teach confidence, competence, and motivation with youth sport programs.
