Conducive sport environments for disadvantaged youth

Sport participation has been associated with many positive outcomes such as
physical, social, cognitive and psychological outcomes. Sport participation,
for example, has been associated with increases in self-esteem, better health
status, reduced chance of depression, more pro-social behaviour and less
criminal behaviour. Promoting sport participation could therefore be a
promosing and effective way of improving life prospects (such as academic
performce and chances on labour market) of youth. This seems to hold especially
true for disadvantaged youth in a youth care setting because sport
participation is lower than for their average peers

The proposed intervention aims to increase sport participation of youth with
behavioural and/or learning problems as part of their youth care program within
a Rotterdam youth care organisation. This will allow us
1.) to empirically test the effect of sport participation on life prospects for
disadvantaged youth, and to explore the role of self-regulation skills and
Sense of Coherence in this effect;
2.) to study the conducive environmental factors that are necessary to improve
life prospects of disadvantaged youth through sport participation; and
3.) to study the collaboration between the youth care organisation and the
sport sector.

This project does not solely focus on producing scientific knowledge, but in
addition specifically aims to support youth care and sport organisations to use
sports to reach wider societal outcomes.

In order to investigate the causal effect of sport participation on the life
prospects of socially vulnerable youth, an intervention will take place that
should enhance sport participation among a group of clients of a youth care
organisation (i.e. the intervention group). The buurtsportcoach will play a key
role in this intervention. He will motivate and train a selected group of youth
care professionals to integrate sport activities in the care that they deliver,
for instance by stimulating their youngsters to become member of a local sport
club. Also, the buurtsportcoach will bring existing collaborations with local
sport clubs to the attention of youth care professionals, and will facilitate
initiatives of the professionals to make use of sport interventions. It is
expected that the training among the youth care professionals and collaboration
with the buurtsportcoach will translate to more sport participation among the
youngsters of these professionals.Training of the youth care professionals by
the buurtsportcoach will exist of various activities, such interactive
workshops, individual face-to-face sessions, and provision of written (online)
information.

The research will involve four phases.
In phase 1, the region manager of the selected region will inform the youth
care professionals in this region about the research project. In this phase
also specific attention will be payed to the study protocol for youth care
professionals.

In phase 2, the actual intervention for youth care professionals will take
place. Youth care professionals will be encouraged to pay more explicit
attention to the possibilities of sport as part of the treatment plan of the
youngsters. Workshops and face-to-face meetings will be organised to facilitate
this process among youth care professionals.

In phase 3, the first (baseline) and second data collection among the
youngsters will take place. For a period of one year, all new clients of the
youth care professionals in the intervention condition and the youth care
professionals in the control condition will be asked to complete a
questionnaire when they enter a care programme (time 1) and six months later
(time 2). Most care programmes at the youth care organisation have a duration
of six months. Excluded from participation in the study will be youngsters who
enter a family care programme, because these programmes focus more on the
parents rather than the youngsters. In this phase additional data is gathered
via interviews with youth care professionals, sport coaches and other relevant
stakeholders in the sport context. Also several interviews will be conducted
with youngster in the experimental condition.

Phase 4 consist of the second follow-up (time 3) which takes place 12 months
after the second measurement. Since most youngsters will not be clients of the
youth care organisation any more at time 3, much effort will be devoted at
keeping in contact with these youngsters for the second follow-up. Furthermore,
the young people in the sample will be encouraged to participate in all three
measurements by offering them an incentive for complete participation. Previous
research has shown that incentives not only enhance response rate but also tend
to increase reliability of the answers. Addresses, phone number and e-mail
addresses to get in contact with participants will be collected via the second
questionnaire.

see previous box (study design)

The youngsters have to fill in three questionnaires of max. 15 minutes each. In
addition, a number of youngsters is asked for an interview, lasting no more
than 30 minutes.

A number of youth care professionals and sport professionals are asked for
interviews, lasting no more than an hour.