BBaLLittle Leaders
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>View discussions about this entry Country: United Kingdom
Organization: BBaLL
Sport: Basketball
Year the initative began (yyyy) 2005
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Project URL: www.totalbball.com
Positioning in the Mosaic of solutions
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence? Granting new 9 & 10 year old basketball players their first opportunity to become community role models by leading and coaching local 5 & 6 year olds
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field? BBaLLittle Leaders offers young players their first chance to give back to their local communities through sport.
By trusting, guiding, believing in young people (9 & 10 year olds) we're providing a framework including free use of new facilities, additonal support and training in areas such as communication, conflict solution and other coaching based skills. All with the total support and guidance of qualified and trained coaching staff who are on hand at all times to supervise and care for those involved. This opens up opportunities for even younger people (5-8 year olds) to begin their sporting life through basketball and also have what may be their first role model or mentor in a local environment that is familiar and safe. The training we offer is simple, on line and accessable for free to all involved including parents and siblings who may wish to become involved. We hope this will develop communities driven by their youngest most active members who will lay future foundation What are the existing barriers, the biggest problem, your innovation is hoping to address/change? Lack of Safe Spaces. Our interpretation of this stretches to safety from the community outside of the space and those who also share the space. Both rural & urban areas suffer from similar factors with this sport, and the solution lies at the heart of the sense of civic pride & how communities come together in both competative and recreational sport. It's hoped that this addresses the problem by opening spaces to more community users and making clubs and courts the heart of their own development
Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing? Programmes exist locally that work with Coaches, Volunteers and Parents to begin offering basketball to 9 and 10 year olds.
This innovation would work in a similar way for BBaLL tutors to meet and train these players and break their practices and programmes down into something they can understand and offer to others. A constant resource for them is our website with free resources (in addition to the ones they already receive), blogs and discussions with other young people from outside of their local community. We encourage their other constatnt resource in the form of their coaches and parents to assist them with their first steps into community involvement. Short six week programmes are offered that can grow and sustain or can be picked up at the same time the following year if other community sports programmes are on offer. The next group of BBaLLittle Leaders will then be attracted the following year with last year's 9 year olds helping this years with their first steps. How do you plan to grow your innovation? Growth of this innvoation will come about through local competition opportunities in second year areas and expansion into other areas of the UK through similar networks.
A key for competition is that people will step outside of their local area and experience meeting and coaching against / sharing ideas with other young people. The benefits of this are similar to those on a local scale, just projected further afield with a greater impact. The ability for young people to continue online friendships through the website only adds to the sustainable benefits of the programme. Test expansions have worked with second year areas and slightly older Leaders and it's felt that similar successes can be had with a younger age group. Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact. Increased trust in young people to become the first generation of leaders and role models through basketball for their local community.
What impact has your innovation had to date/or what is your intended impact? Exactly who are the beneficiaries? BBaLL has over 15,000 member players, coaches, volunteers, officials and parents in an area of south east England over the past two years.
The players are aged 9-14 years old and the others are all of an adult age across 350 new basketball clubs. The programme, like this innvoation is totally inclusive regardless of existing barriers to participation. We intend to use the new BBaLLittles Programme to expand the impact and benefits of BBaLL to a younger and wider participation base.
Please list any other measures reflective of the impact of your innovation? Behaviour of young people inside and outside of school
Increased levels of responsibility of young people involved Improved health of young people Expansion of parental involvement through family resources and specific website areas. What are the main barriers to creating or achieving your impact? Belief in the outcomes and potential of young people across the board.
Setting new standards for social community involvement for youth Continued development of extended sports opportunities for all involved locally How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)? Through a mix of funding applications to different groups who have an interest and involvement in young people and sporting activities locally.
BBaLLittle Leader Programmes can be subsidised by other local BBaLL actvities to reduce the costs of running training events and competitions. If known, provide information on your finances and organization. Budget: Varies from year to year depending on activity and success of applications for funding.
Revenue: Likewise. Staff: Volunteer staff to administer and develop the programme. Part time tutors for courses and events depanding on diary of events. What is the potential demand for your innovation? Based on the popularity of the sport on other countries and a high UK participation in schools a programme such as this could roll out Nationwide with the right backing and planning in key sectors.
What are the main barriers to financial sustainability? The ability to generate income from areas while maintaining key participants (young people / adult coaches) remain involved at no cost.
Replacement of old equipment to a base level to maintain activity locally to build community bases around the sport and reduce the need for travel. What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story. Following my successful Professional Playing Career in Europe and for the Great Britian National Team I wanted to find a way to give back to the sport that had offered me so much.
I first thought of such a innovative programme through working as a volunteer coach in local clubs and saw the potential for younger people to become involved and more aware of the different avenues presented through sports outside of activily playing. Social breakdowns are well documented and with both rural and urban areas that I worked in having few or no safe spaces at the heart of communities for young people to play basketball I decided to begin making a change for the better. The Better Basketball and Lifetime Learning (BBaLL) Programme first began working with local coaches, parents and teachers to sow grassroots seeds of activitiy. This programme began to expand quicker that I had ever expected as basketball is not a major sport in the UK. With this expansion can a need to involve young players in helping the coaches to offer a quality basketball environment to learn and have fun. In order to expand the sport to an even larger age group (5-9 year olds) we decided to begin working with the 9 and 10 year old players on being role models and mentors within their club, school and community. This had the added effect of improving behaviour and reducing bullying while developing a greater social cohesion within community groups throughout the day. An exciting benefit we didn't expect! Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material. Professional Basketball Player for ten years
Played throughout Europe Played in USA University prior to Professional Great Britain Captain 2nd youngest ever player for GB Team Community Coach for the past 5 years in London and South East England Contact Information:
Joel Moore
Head Coach BBaLL (Academic Programme) Discussions about this entry |
Hi Joel
Sounds great what you are doing. It is needed in all sports I think - particularly football which is where I'm coming from. Younger role models free from media pressure and also less traditional in their coaching style, will mean kids can accelerate their learning.
We work in Multi Use Games Areas (MUGA's) across the South West of England - they all have Basketball courts obviously on them, so I wonder if there's a way we can join the two sports and make for more inclusive programmes in these areas??
All the best with it all
Dan
Sports Evolution Ltd (Sevo)
Hi Joel,
great project, love the idea of "kids coaching kids". How exactly do the web resources tie into the concept? How do they help the kids you serve to be better coaches and young leaders?
- Jasper Nicolaisen
Free University Berlin