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34 | SPRING 2021 | www.ladiesgaelic.ie Gaelic4Teens: What do the Coaches Say? Names: Stephen and Claire Club: Dunshaughlin & Royal Gaels, Meath Why did your club apply for Gaelic4Teens? Our club applied for the Gaelic4Teens programme to educate our club coaches in the best way to deliver structured training sessions for the needs and capabilities of the Female Youth players. We recently set up our club coaching and games development committee to provide coach opportunities and coaching supports to our club coaches throughout the year. We saw the Gaelic4Teens programme as the perfect way to assist our youth coaches in learning how to design and implement a coaching plan to meet the specific needs and requirements of each player, while developing their social skills as people, and sporting needs as players, in a holistic and supporting environment. What are you hoping your club will achieve from their involvement? We hope that all our coaches will embrace the programme and use the learnings from the webinars and the fantastic resource pack to retain all our teenage girls currently playing. We also hope they will pass on the learnings to coaches of our current child players, 7 to 12 year olds, which will hopefully allow the club develop a structured pathway for both our players and coaches, in line with the new Gaelic Games player pathway. What have you enjoyed most to date? The enthusiasm in the delivery of every webinar, the content of the resource pack and the new learnings specific to the needs of teenage girls (Teenage Girls First aid kit is a great example). One thing I will change from my involvement in Gaelic4Teens is…. to ensure that I Serve, Support and Enthuse in every aspect of my role as a coach, not just with players but also with other coaches and parents. GAELIC 4TEENS T he Gaelic4Teens programme works closely with club coaches who are involved with the teenage cohort, guiding the content of their coaching sessions as well as establishing the best ways for coaches to communicate with their players. Due to the current pandemic, the Gaelic4Teens programme had to adopt an alternative approach to ensure all clubs participating in the programme continue to experience the many benefits this programme has to offer. Some notable changes include a series of coach education webinars that are delivered by Gaelic4Teens ambassadors, self-paced learning modules and introduction of club coaching visits when guidelines permit same. This year, there are 29 clubs actively engaging in the programme. Session one focused on 'Coaching Behaviours and Approach'. This session was delivered by Cork Senior Footballer and Gaelic4Teens ambassador Orlagh Farmer. On the night, over 190 coaches were provided with new ideas and coaching strategies to assist with improving engagement with the teenage player. Session two focused on 'Physical Considerations'. On this occasion, we were joined by Roscommon Senior Footballer and Gaelic4Teens ambassador Laura Fleming. Laura gave the 180+ audience on the night advice on the importance of conducting activities that will help the player to be able to meet the demands of our game. In addition, Laura highlighted the importance of functional movement as part of coaching sessions, to assist with stabilisation and mobility of lower limbs. Due to the alternative format, new opportunities have been presented. Over the weeks, some of the 'live' webinars will be open to club parents and players as well as the coaches, resulting in the Gealic4Teens message being available to a wider audience. In addition, all the coaches have access to all resources the Gaelic4Teens programme has to offer via the GAA eLearning portal. The success of the programme has been its ability to evolve and, once again, this is proving to be the case. GAELIC4TEENS ALTERNATIVE FORMAT BRINGS NEW OPPORTUNITIES