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Coaching children and young people often takes place on the move in parks, halls, pitches or sports halls.

Those involved know these sessions can happen after work, before school, during busy evenings or as part of already-packed weekends. But regardless of when or where, they often happen with very little time to stop, reflect and ask, “what part of this process could we adapt so it feels more child-first?”

The only certain thing is that coaches need practical, quick-to-access and trusted support.

The app is there for you whether you need ideas specific to a particular age group, an activity or the time you have for any given session. Just tap in a few details and Joy will share child-first ideas you can use straight away.

Joy can also answer different questions, such as:

• how can I make my session more playful?
• what can I say if a parent doesn’t understand my approach?
• how do I adapt a game for different confidence levels?
• what would make this session feel more inclusive?

Alongside Joy, the app brings together practical articles, coach stories, learning content and updates from across Play Their Way.

Coaches can also track their progress and unlock badges as they go with the new gamification element.

We think this is a great tool that will help coaches and will benefit kids too, so if you work with trainers we encourage you to take a look, download it and try it.

And if you think it could help the people you support, share it with them because in doing so you can help make child-first coaching more available without having to start from scratch.

For many people sport is associated with teamwork, friendship and confidence, but for lots of young LGBT+ individuals the experience of sport can be far less positive.

When I think back to my own experiences of school PE lessons, I remember often being one of the last people chosen for team sports.

Whilst many young people enjoy sport from an early age, others can come away feeling excluded, judged or simply that sport is not for people 'like them'.

Mosaic Summer Camp can be a prime example of where it is taken to another level.

Each year, young LGBT+ individuals aged 12-17 spend a week together taking part in outdoor adventure activities, team challenges and sports that many have never had the confidence to try before.

Whether it is kayaking across a lake, abseiling off a cliff or building a raft, young individuals are encouraged to step outside their comfort zones in an environment built on acceptance and encouragement.

The results can be transformative and young people who arrive feeling anxious often leave having discovered new strengths, new friendships and a newfound confidence in their ability to participate in physical activity.

Trust and participation

What’s more, for many our summer camp becomes the first place where they experience sport without fear of judgment.

For our young adults, those aged 18–25, Pride Youth Games provides a similar opportunity.

The event brings together LGBT+ youth organisations from across the UK to take part in friendly sporting activities to have fun and to build community connections.

The emphasis is not on elite performance but on participation, on enjoyment and on the creation of positive experiences that’ll encourage lifelong engagement with physical activity.

These programmes demonstrate an important lesson for the wider sports sector: when young LGBT+ individuals are provided with welcoming, inclusive and supportive environments, participation follows.

The challenge is not fixing a lack of interest in sport, but ensuring that young people can access sport in spaces where they feel they belong and where they don’t have to worry about being LGBT+.

At Mosaic, we have seen firsthand how transformative those opportunities can be.

Sport has the power to improve health, strengthen communities and build confidence, so by creating environments where young LGBT+ individuals feel safe to participate, we can ensure that more young people experience those benefits and discover that sport really can be for them.

As we work alongside partners in Uniting the Movement, we have been deeply inspired by the brilliant youth voice initiatives across the sector that are supporting young people to make themselves heard. 

At the Leadership Skills Foundation, our own youth-voice journey is about reinforcing a core belief: that every young person can lead change if given the opportunity to develop their skills and confidence.  

Overcoming obstacles through communication

As part of our role as a Sport England system partner, we’ve been building understanding of the barriers young people face to accessing leadership opportunities and progressing into the sector's workforce. 

Youth voice has been an important part of this process and we’ve been testing a new accredited learning programme to empower young people to lead the conversation. 

The Speak Up Challenge aims to build young people’s skills and confidence through creative, participatory activities in classrooms, sports halls and youth clubs. 

Based on the Lundy model for youth participation, it gives young people a platform to communicate their views to influential professionals and policy-makers – all while also receiving feedback to help them understand the potential impact of their insights. 

As part of our pilot, colleagues at Sport England kindly agreed to listen and to provide video feedback as young people shared their perspectives on the barriers into sports volunteering and worked together to reimagine pathways into employment. 

Their ideas spanned transport difficulties, prohibitive costs, lack of role models, low confidence and negative perceptions of careers in sport. 

We’ve taken all the insights and created a summary for everybody to access and this is available on the Challenge page too. 

Our journey so far  

Inspired by Sport England’s Youth Voice Innovation Storybook, we began by running co-design and consultation sessions in a variety of community and academic settings.

The young people we worked with were both energised by the opportunity to lead change and motivated by the potential to earn accredited recognition for their participation, but they also shared their concerns: 

• Lack of time to commit to ongoing youth-voice activities. 
• Worries about standing out amongst their peers or being visible online. 
• Concerns around lacking the skills and confidence to make a difference. 

These insights helped form our core design principles: prioritise confidence-building, avoid long-term commitments, foster peer collaboration, protect privacy and recognise skill development through accreditation. 

We planned a small, iterative pilot to test and adapt as we learned during the first phase, and we were blown away by the depth of insights shared and the level of creativity displayed.

However, some less confident participants, particularly those from special educational needs and disability (SEND) and neurodivergent backgrounds, felt overly vulnerable and struggled to express their views.

Delivery staff reflected that participants needed more time to build trust and grow into the activities. 

Our second iteration focused more on building this base of skills and team rapport.

By improving scaffolding for mixed abilities, we saw positive signs that the programme was becoming more accessible and inclusive.  

Overall, our internal evaluation showed that 87% of participants believed the pilot helped them build skills to speak up for change, and the same percentage said they are now more confident speaking in front of others. 

These results reinforced our belief that the ability to form a viewpoint and effectively share it is a leadership skill that can be practiced, improved and recognised.  

Encouraging impact 

This project has strengthened our understanding of young people’s lived experiences and is informing how we design and deliver programmes for underrepresented groups. 

Participation has also had a meaningful impact on those involved.

It was a real joy to witness a room of boisterous 15-year-olds fall silent and react with smiles as they watched their views being addressed by colleagues from Sport England.

When we surveyed how they felt about the feedback, the overwhelming majority indicated they “definitely felt heard”.  

They were proud that their insights were taken seriously and this validation has acted as a springboard into other opportunities.

Following the challenge, we’ve seen participants inspired to launch online petitions for their MPs, to create new youth-led school clubs and to seek out other youth advocacy initiatives. 

Looking ahead 

As we move into the next phase of our development, we know we’ve still got some way to go, but we are excited to collaborate with other system partners to build on our learning and to support other related work from across the sector.  

Together we can make sure that every young person – regardless of background or circumstance – is able to lead positive change, so if you’d like to discuss our findings or how we can work together to empower young leaders to speak up, please contact us.  

We’re excited about continuing to grow together.

Growing up as the only deaf person in my family, sport became my escape from the loneliness and isolation I often felt at home and at school, because constantly second-guessing conversations and struggling to keep up takes a toll.

But sport gave me freedom and a way to let go of all that frustration.

It all started with swimming. In the water I found my own bubble of silence. No worrying about misheard words or asking people to repeat themselves – just me, the lane and a sense of independence.

That feeling is something every child should have, but for many deaf children the chance to experience it simply isn’t there.

Destination Deaflympics: turning inspiration into action

In 2025, we launched Destination Deaflympics, a programme for 8-16-year-olds inspired by the Tokyo 2025 Deaflympics.

For us it’s all about giving young people the chance to try fun, inclusive activities and closing the gap between deaf children and their hearing peers.

So far we’ve reached 3,500 deaf and hard of hearing children across 175 settings and, along the way, we’ve learned a lot about the barriers they face, like the lack of accessible community provision or coaches who don't know how to deliver inclusive sessions.

That’s why we’re working with partners like the British Association of Teachers of Deaf Children and Young People to make sure deaf children get their recommended 60 minutes of activity every day.

This work has seen great success in the education sector with teachers sharing that by taking part in Destination Deaflympics, they are also seeing benefits in the classroom with students being more focused and ready to learn.

Role models who make a difference

The Deaflympics celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2024 and the Tokyo Games was an event like no other.

The GB team brought home 12 medals, finishing 12th out of 80 nations, but its impact went way beyond the results.

These athletes are key role models who showed what’s possible and inspired the next generation of Deaf sport men and women.

Before the Games, one of our swimmers spent a day with deaf schoolchildren in Greater Manchester sparking excitement and ambition that will last a lifetime.

Why this matters for Sport England’s vision

Everything we’re doing supports Sport England's long-term strategy, Uniting the Movement. We're talking about things like:

• tackling inequalities by addressing the participation gap in sport for deaf people
• creating inclusive environments through coach education and community partnerships
• improving mental wellbeing by using sport to combat isolation
• building role models who inspire young people to dream big.

Sport should be for everyone and that’s why, by breaking down barriers and creating opportunities, we’re not just changing lives – we’re helping deliver Sport England’s vision of a fair, inclusive and active nation.

Through individual and group activities they shared moments of positive experiences, as well as times when sport had felt uncomfortable, pressurised or exclusionary.

These reflections helped surface what really matters to young people when it comes to coaches, environments and feeling safe, valued and included.

This blog is built directly on their voices and lived experiences.

What young people want from coaches

From a young person’s perspective, coaches play a powerful role in shaping how sport and physical activity feels – for better or worse.

Young people told us they want coaches who:

• genuinely enjoy what they do
• are passionate, fun and supportive
• care about young people as individuals.

The coaches who have the most positive impact are those who build respectful, trusting relationships, set clear boundaries and actively listen to feedback from children and young people.

When coaches encourage young people to try new things and gently push them outside their comfort zones, sport and physical activity can help to build confidence and self‑esteem, especially when challenge is balanced with praise.

Young people also shared how good it feels to:

• improve at something they enjoy
• feel proud of their progress
• feel fitter, healthier and more confident
• be inspired to believe in their dreams and future potential.

However, they were equally clear about what can take the joy out of sport.

When coaches place too much pressure on performance, it can quickly undermine confidence and motivation.

High‑pressure environments affect young people differently and, for some, this can lead to stress, disengagement or dropping out altogether.

The feeling of being left out or forgotten can be especially damaging – for example, being the only girl in a mixed session.

Many young people already worry about being judged or excluded; what they want most is to feel that they belong, can socialise and feel accepted.

Ultimately, young people told us they want low‑pressure, welcoming and non‑judgmental environments where they feel supported, encouraged and free to learn.

Being part of a child‑first coaching community

We heard clearly from the YAG that they want coaches who believe in them, understand that fun and enjoyment matter, and recognise that positive experiences are key to developing a lifelong love of physical activity.

The YAG will continue to shape support for the sector, helping to ensure more children and young people can access opportunities that reflect their needs and experiences. 

Coaches play a hugely influential role in children and young people’s lives.

If you’re a coach, or work with those who coach children, you can get involved by joining the Play Their Way community bringing together people who are committed to child‑first, inclusive coaching and creating positive experiences for every child.

And if you have some time, the CCC is launching a series of peer-learning webinars, which I can't recommend enough. They are free to access and are open to anyone working in the sports and coaching sector who is motivated to make changes to embed youth voice in their organisation.

The first session will take place on 30 June, and it will be presented by the head of youth leadership at Youth Sport Trust, Steph Matthews, who will share practical insights, learnings and successes from embedding youth voice across their organisation.