2022 Volume: Edition 8

To our Sport for Life champions,

It’s time to embrace a clear path to better sport, greater health and higher achievement—this includes a pathway that works for all. As each club, community and organization evolves and ensures inclusivity, diversity, equity and accessibility in their programming, we can all learn from one another. 

In this edition, we share the story of The Grind—a basketball program with the common objective of recruitment and retention aligning with the principles of Long-Term Development, highlight a case study surrounding the implementation of equitable and quality community sport for racialized and newcomer women and girls in partnership with Canadian Women & Sport, and introduce a new eLearning and an upcoming French webinar. There are also various opportunities to take part in enhancing quality sport, including a State of Play survey for youth and information on the 2023 Summit.

Tomorrow, National Day of Truth and Reconciliation provides our collective community with an opportunity to reflect on the history and continued effects of residential schools. We commit to listening to, supporting, learning from, and creating space for Indigenous voices as we work towards truth and reconciliation.

2023 Sport for Life Summit

The community-based Sport for Life Summit aims to be a catalyst for essential connections between local sectors, organizations and individuals. It establishes an environment for idea generation through thoughtful and open dialogue across a range of topics. Through knowledge sharing, the Summit can help build and maintain networks, enhance partner tables and advance existing projects, while identifying opportunities for innovation. Ultimately, it brings people together to collectively improve quality sport and physical activity ecosystems within their communities.

The theme of the 2023 Summit is Thriving through Challenging Times. In the coming weeks, we will be announcing the host communities, and on which dates during the February 6-12 week their Summit will take place. More info to come!

If you have any questions, please contact Tyler Laing at tyler@sportforlife.ca.

Case study: Implementing Equitable and Quality Community Sport for Racialized and Newcomer Women & Girls project

Positive experiences in supportive environments are at the core of quality sport—we need welcoming, progressive, fun sport and physical activity to keep everyone engaged and active for life. As we all look to build a more equitable and inclusive future, that goal has never been more important. 

Gender equity plays a pivotal role in that positive, welcoming experience. 

This past year, Sport for Life, in partnership with Canadian Women & Sport, began a new initiative to support and collaborate with community-based organizations keen to engage and empower self-identifying racialized and/or newcomer women, girls, trans women, trans girls, and femmes through quality sport opportunities.

>>Read more

Blossoming basketball program attracts youth in Victoria

Becoming a successful athlete can be a real grind.

No matter how you look at it, if you want to succeed in any particular sport, you need to be willing to sweat. Nobody understands this better than Terrell Evans, who dribbled his way from an impoverished upbringing on the Westside of Las Vegas through an illustrious basketball career that took him all over the world before he settled down to start his own program in Victoria, The Grind. 

“I always knew, having such great coaches myself, that eventually I wanted to give back to the game. Based on my own lived experiences in everything I do – whether it be education, sport, no matter what – it’s going to be a grind. You are going to have to dig deep,” Evans told Sport for Life.  

>>Read more

JumpStart State of Play Survey

Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities in partnership with Project Play is deploying a nationwide State of Play survey of youth in Canada. This survey will gather a new, critical data set centred on the voices of young people ages 8-18.

We need organizations to help distribute the State of Play survey to youth in their programs and community:

Step 1: Enroll your organization.

Register here with the access code: StateofPlayCanadaYouth.

This process collects additional information about your programming and will provide your organization with a unique survey URL.

Step 2: Inform your families of your intent to administer this survey.

Step 3: Get young people to complete the survey.

To learn more, click here or contact Jennifer Brown Lerner at jennifer.lerner@aspeninstitute.org.

Upcoming French Webinar: Yes, Sport for Pleasure: It Can Be Done!

Regardless of where our athletes end up in our sport system, various issues affecting them are increasingly making headlines and contributing to the dropout of athletes. As coaches are not the only ones targeted, the need to consider parents, spectators and violence towards officials are added to the set of challenges that the sport system still faces today.

In this workshop, panelists will critically reflect on how to reverse these archaic traditions and enable athletes to meet their sport goals in a fun environment.

Date: Thursday, October 13, 2022, at 10 a.m. PST / 1 p.m. EST.

>>Register now 

New eLearning!: Social Emotional Learning for Educators 

This course is for teachers, educational assistants and school support staff to increase their knowledge of behavioural and cognitive skills related to character education, youth development and behaviour. This course will provide an introduction to social emotional learning with a focus on the five core competencies, unconscious bias and how best to integrate this learning into your practice.

Act fast! Get 10% off your registration with the code 1DCEB8. Offer ends October 14, 2022. 

>>Register now