Examples of Competition– Development Pathways
– by Gérard Lauzière

There are likely as many different ways to implement the Competition – Development context as there are sports. Hopefully some of these examples will provide you with ideas on how to implement it in your sport.

CanoeKayak:
All multi-sport modules are fully integrated, although for the moment, they have a provincial Master Learning Facilitator offering the Leading Drug-free Sport module. They offer five days of workshops followed by approximately six months of practice and then five more days of workshops. It is a national delivery in which national team coaches are invited as expert presenters. In the Analyzing Technical and Tactical Skills module, coaches bring a video of one of their athletes which the experts analyze and provide feedback.

Wrestling:
No multi-sport modules are integrated. It will be a national delivery, they will take advantage of gatherings such as Canada Cup when they will deliver the first weekend of workshops. The next weekend of workshops takes place during training camps; one in the east (Nova Scotia) and one in the west (Alberta). Coaches can go to either one of the workshops; usually they bring athletes to these events to make some of the exercises more relevant. Coaches have pre-task work to complete before attending the workshops.

The first workshop is a three-day weekend in which coaches complete the Performance Planning module, the Plan a Practice 2 module, two technical sessions, and a part of Analyzing Technical and Tactical Skills module. The second weekend consists of the Manage a Sport Program module, two technical sessions, the second part of the Analyze Technical and Tactical Skills module, and finishes off with some technical assessments. Coaches can complete the multi-sport modules in their province whenever they are offered.

Triathlon:
Triathlon Canada has developed an interesting entry and evaluation system likely due to the small number of coaches at this level. The coach applies to enter the Competition – Development context; if the candidate is accepted he or she is evaluated in all outcomes and is assigned a mentor coach. This mentor provides the coach with guidance as he or she participates in the workshops and shares his or her experiences to help the coach fill in the gaps. This is all tracked on the website, where coaches can go to a protected area to exchange with their mentor and see their progress.

Speed Skating:
Step 1: Self-evaluation and context finder
The coach completes an online self-evaluation questionnaire which assists him or her to identify his or her strengths and weaknesses as well as the best context in which to seek training. Based on the results of this questionnaire the coach either proceeds to Step 2 or seeks training and certification in another context.

Step 2: Coach Registration
The coach registers for the Competition – Development training and certification process on Speed Skating Canada’s website. In order to be accepted for the training process the coach is required to complete an online evaluation demonstrating his or her knowledge or required pre-requisites for Make Ethical Decisions (CAC online evaluation), Planning a Practice, and Design a Basic Sport Program.

Step 3: Coach training and preliminary evaluations
Once the coach has registered for the Competition – Development training process he or she will have access to online training tools as well as the preliminary evaluation modules which will serve to determine the coach’s readiness to proceed to the mentorship and evaluation portion of the Competition – Development context.

Step 4: Coach Mentorship and Practical Evaluations
Once the coach has completed the required preliminary evaluations he or she will apply to be assigned a mentor coach who will be responsible for assigning the coach practical project-based tasks as well as overseeing the evaluation in training and competition of this coach.

Step 5: Coach is certified

Athletics:
Athletics Canada will be integrating two of the multi-sport modules (Developing Athletics Abilities and Prevention and Recovery). It will be a national delivery and will take place during two technical congresses in which Athletics Canada will deliver the sport-specific modules and will bring in provincial Master Learning Facilitators to deliver the multi-sport modules.