Author(s): STRACHAN, L., MACDONALD, D.J., Institution: UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA, Country: CANADA, Abstract-ID: 931

Introduction: For well over 20 years, the field of positive youth development (PYD) has advanced the idea that youth are resources to be cultivated and that the development of young people involves asset building rather than reducing problem behaviors (Fraser-Thomas et al., 2005; Holt et al., 2017). Project SCORE (www.projectscore.ca) was created in 2011 as an online resource to assist coaches and parents focus on intentional positive youth sport program delivery (Strachan et al., 2020). Recent research with Project SCORE has explored the connection between coaches and athletes, life-skill transfer, and the growth of positive personal skills. Ferriera et al. (2026; re-submitted) had 13 coaches complete the Project SCORE workshop. These coaches engaged in weekly reflections and completed the Portuguese version of the Coaching Life Skills in Sport Questionnaire. In addition, 70 youth Portuguese football and rowing athletes from various levels ranging from U11 to U19 completed the 4 Cs questionnaire. Inferential testing discovered several pre- to post-intervention findings across the four inventories. These included a significant increase in four coach-athlete relationship and four prosocial behaviour constructs, along with significant decreases in inversely scored low self-confidence and antisocial behaviour constructs. Results indicated that Project SCORE benefitted these Portuguese coaches in improving PYD and in enabling life skill transfer, while athletes displayed relatively positive results across the board save for the area of self-competence, which requires further investigation. It should also be noted that changing coach behaviours is difficult and requires multilayered organizational and parental support, but Project SCORE provides concrete coaching and parenting strategies and activities that are easy to implement and easy to access. This led to the current qualitative study, exploring the perceptions of parents regarding PYD through sport.

Methods: Parents of youth sport athletes (4 at the time of this abstract; 3 female and 1 male) were recruited to participate in a focus group or an interview asking about positive sport delivery and current practices from parents in supporting a coach’s actions related to PYD.

Results: Engaging in a thematic analysis, preliminary results highlight four overarching themes: 1) positive parent support, 2) engagement with their child related to the 4 Cs (competence, connection, confidence, and character), 3) developmental differences in the growth of positive skills for athletes, and 4) parental growth in youth sport, including receiving support and encouragement

Implications: Implications of this continuing research points to the importance of parent inclusion in youth sport programs and the potential that youth sport has for deliberate and on-going parent-athlete development through intentional programming such as Project SCORE.

Presented with support with a grant from SSHRC/Sport Canada