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Innovation and coaching experts at Paralympics Australia will expand on a pilot program aimed at creating ‘Communities of Practice’ among the nation’s best and emerging coaches in Para-sport after receiving a $20,000 coach development grant from the Australian Institute of Sport.
Paralympic Innovation Lead Dr Ross Pinder set up the Connected Coaches group in 2020, designed to reimagine the way knowledge sharing and collaboration could be facilitated between coaches.
Following positive feedback from participants, Pinder, in partnership with PA Coach Development Advisor Alex Jago, delved deeper into theories of Communities of Practice, which is defined as a group of people who share a concern, set of problems, or passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in the area by interacting on an ongoing basis.
Since being announced last month as one of 14 successful grant applicants, Jago and Pinder have been developing two initiatives: a Paralympic Head Coach Community of Practice and a performance pathway Community of Practice in collaboration with the Tasmanian Institute of Sport. The next step is to work with National Sporting Organisations and the National Institute Network to find candidates who would benefit most from taking part. The broad vision is to create connections, collaboration and world’s best learning environments for Australia’s coaching leaders in Para-sport.
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“At PA we work with a range of sports and our Australian Paralympic Teams,” Jago said. “It’s largely a decentralised system but we’re in a position to facilitate communities of practice, those touchpoints of connection.
“Coaching can be an isolated pursuit. We’re finding that there’s clearly a value in cross-pollination and creating safe spaces for coaches to connect, share and solve problems together.
“The coaches are saying they appreciate the opportunity to connect and belong to a learning opportunity with other leading coaches in Paralympic contexts outside of their own sport. So, we want to explore this concept further and see if the benefits grow. We want to see if it leads to improved practices in their own environments with their athletes.”
Jago said it was important to point out that this wasn’t a program, more a learning initiative that would be co-designed by the coaches themselves.
“Our responsibility is to create the environment so the coaches can get out of it what they want to get out of it,” he said.
“We’re also there to facilitate and lead. Once we’ve discovered what the coaches want to investigate further, we can bring in experts to help share that message.
“For example, logistics is a theme that often comes up in our conversations with coaches. So we’ve brought in experts in Paralympic sport logistics and planning to share their knowledge to help coaches and teams be better at getting from one place to another to be able to perform.
“This is a space in which we believe PA can play a really important role. The Connected Coaches pilot was acknowledged as a great opportunity to share challenges and come up with solutions as a group – which ultimately benefits everyone.”
By: David Sygall, Paralympics Australia
Posted: 27 July 2022
