ICCE Innovation Group of Leading Agencies (IGLA)

A significant feature of the 8th ICCE Global Coaches Conference (25th - 27th August, 2011 at INSEP Paris) was the inclusion of the newly formed ICCE Innovation Group of Leading Agencies (IGLA) into the pre-conference events and meetings. This group brings together eleven world-leading coaching agencies for the purpose of advancing coach development in a number of priority areas.

The eleven organizations participating in the Innovation Group are:

• Trainerakademie, DOSB, Germany
• SASCOC, South Africa
• Coaching Association of Canada
• NOC*NSF, Netherlands
• INSEP, France
• Israel Sport Authority
• Australian Sports Commission
• BASPO Switzerland
• High Performance Sport New Zealand
• The Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee and Confederation of Sports
• Leeds Metropolitan University (host of ICCE/ECC office)

Currently, IGLA is focusing on three themes:

1. Quality Improvement in Coaching;
2. Teaching and Learning; and
3. High Performance Coaching.

These three sub-committees met over 24th and 25th of August to start delineating their areas of work and to discuss priority areas.

Quality Improvement in Coach Education (QIC)
– Chaired by Adrian Bürgi (Switzerland)

The aim of this group is to have an international frame of reference of what constitutes an acceptable and superior coach development program. This would be a significant benefit to the ICCE member organizations allowing them to benchmark their programs and courses, and would also provide an assessment process for external programs.

The QIC-Workgroup will develop and test a quality improvement process. Its objectives are to:

• Develop guidelines for the review and accreditation of coach development programs offered by international federations and other coaching organizations based on the principles of quality improvement.
• Share and describe good practice in program evaluation, course endorsement/ accreditation and quality improvement among the leading partners.
• Benchmark the education programs from participating lead partners as a pilot of the quality improvement program.

Download their report: Quality Improvement in Coaching Workgroup (.pdf 142 KB)

Teaching and Learning
– Chaired by Penny Crisfield (United Kingdom)

The formation of this group is a response to the acknowledgement that Coach Developers are the critical success factor for delivery effective of quality coach education. From this perspective, the objectives of the group is to help further coaching development in the area of teaching and learning by looking at how we develop those people who contribute to the development of coaches. In order to do this, the group:

• Discussed the most effective methodologies to use when training tutors/facilitators
• Defined what is meant by Quality Coach Development
• Reviewed current research and agreed on common terminology

In future meetings the group will:

• Develop guidelines for the selection, training, support and professional development of Coach Developers
• Develop career, qualification and professional development pathways for Coach Developers
• Share and describe good coach developer practice in teaching methods and coach training
• Identify the quality improvement standards and measurement processes

Download their report: Teaching and Learning Workgroup (.pdf, 268 KB)

High Performance Coach (HPC)
– Chaired by John Bales (Canada)

The HPC group has come together with very clear and distinctive goals. This group will:

• Share good practice in High Performance Coach and Performance Director preparation
• Produce a profile of successful high performance coaches: what differentiates the top coaches from the rest?
• Set up a programme of international exchanges
• Examine the relationship between high performance coaches and performance directors to develop guidelines to maximize it

All of the above objectives will unequivocally link to the development of the International Sport Coaching Framework, both providing new insights to support its development, and also ensuring the work of the group is fully aligned with the objectives of the framework.

Download their report: High Performance Coaching Workgroup (.pdf, 142 KB)