How to Help Girls Develop Through Sports and Role Models

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By Sam Piha

There is an exploding interest in girls’ sports, as our understanding of the benefits grow. Through girls’ sports afterschool programs can promote leadership, engagement and personal empowerment.

“We know that sport is empowering, particularly for girls, and challenge gender norms. Sport participation offers girls an opportunity to build their self-esteem, courage and self-efficacy. It is a place where they can take up leadership positions and through sport programs girls' belief in their own ability increases. This translates into everyday life – it encourages them to take initiative, raise their voices and attempt things they never assumed were possible.

When community members see girls achieve in sport, they often recognize their potential to achieve in other domains.  Lastly, sport is a powerful tool and platform to strengthen social ties, networks, engage the community and promote positive messages. In short, wins on the field translate into wins off the field – One Win Leads to Another.” [1]

 

TIPS FOR DEVELOPING LEADERSHIP

According to Women Win, “Girls’ leadership can and should be an important part of program design. Developing the leadership abilities and opportunities within a program for the adolescent girl participants creates a pool of potential coaches, facilitators and female leaders for your sport programs. This, in turn, increases the potential for these girls to grow as leaders in their communities.

One of the most powerful ways to build leadership qualities in girls is to put girls in leadership roles. When girls are expected to lead others, they find power within themselves they might not know existed. This can come in the form of formal positions or informal relationships between girls. Creative program leaders and coaches find subtle ways to facilitate this process and support all forms of leadership.

• Be patient. Leadership is a skill that is developed over time. Ask girls what they are good at and how they want to build their skills and confidence. Encourage them to lead their own development.
• Allow girls to elect their own leaders.
• Highlight examples of good leadership.
• Let girls train others in sport-specific, practical and life skills.
• Show girls you value their opinions.
• Explicitly talk about and encourage discussions about leadership values to girls regularly.
• Lead by example as a coach or program leader.
• Support positive role modelling.
• Allow girls to choose if they want to fill leadership roles.
• Encourage girls to go out in community and be recognized.
• Reward acts of leadership with outward praise and formal honors.
• Reward exceptional performance with leadership roles.
• Give all girls opportunities to lead during practice, not just older, talented, non-disabled or more natural leaders.
• Constantly encourage goal setting and evaluation.
• Target inhibitors of leadership and address them, such as lack of confidence, peer pressure or poor mentoring.
• Seek to help every girl develop to her highest personal potential, as opposed to constantly criticizing or comparing girls to one another.
• Recognize quiet leadership in girls, those who are not outspoken or loud, but rather, those who will always run the extra lap with the slowest girl on the team.
• Create standards of what it takes to be a leader from both girls with and without disabilities

Personal empowerment and control are closely linked. Program partners report that when a girl feels like she has control over her body, her future and her environment, she begins to feel strong and powerful. It is important to give participants in your program some degree of control over the design of the program, especially when the intent of the program is to increase girls’ self-esteem. Girls are more likely to fully engage in activities that they help design.” [2]

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PROGRAM DESIGN: HOW TO ENGAGE GIRLS IN SPORTS 

• “Allow girls to choose paint colors and make decorations for the space where their sessions are held.
• Ask girls to vote on how they would like to be grouped for competitions, for example, by age, by region or by skill level.
• Give girls the choice of uniform colors and team names.
• Consult with girls and their families about time and duration of practices and training sessions
• Ask girls to create rules of conduct for sessions and penalties for breach of conduct.
• Pick a group of girls to interview and evaluate potential coaches.
• Ask girls which sport they would like to play.
• Ask girls which life skills topics they would like to discuss.” [3]

THE IMPORTANCE OF ROLE MODELS FOR GIRLS 

According to Women Win, “Girls are exposed to both positive and negative role models every day: a strong mother who stands up against domestic abuse or a female celebrity that uses her sex appeal to be popular. All of these people affect how a girl views her own potential. These are the people who girls use as references for whom they will become and whose behavior they will emulate.

Local examples provide more easily imaginable visions of success. A key component to presenting girls with role models is to make sure the success experienced by the role models is attainable and replicable in their minds. Research has shown that when individuals feel that the role model in front of them has attained a status unreachable to them, their presence can actually be demoralizing. If possible, find role models who exemplify an area in which girls have an interest and where they need help in personal development. Find a person who can share their personal experience with personal growth in that area. Men can certainly serve as positive role models; however, there is an inherent value in same-gender role modelling.” [4]

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Role Models: Some Tips

“A girl needs to see confidence, leadership and accomplishment in other women in order to envision herself with those qualities. A program designed to empower girls must provide powerful, positive role models. As program directors, it is helpful to expose girls to a diverse set of role models as consistently as possible. Strong role models can be women who are older, skilled athletes, coaches, community leaders, successful business people, celebrities, politicians, religious leaders, confident peers or any strong woman whose presence will resonate with the girls. Although there is power to showing girls women who are international heroines, there is also a power to exposing them to local people.” [5] -  Women Win

Women Win offers these tips to promote women role models: 

• “Organize events where role models speak to girls about their experiences.
• Try to pair up individual girls with older mentors with the intention of creating long-lasting relationships.
• Take girls to see athletic events with older participants. Arrange a meet-and-greet afterwards to allow girls to interact with players.
• Set up guest coaching sessions with successful coaches from your region.
• Ensure that all those in positions of power within the organization are serving as positive role models for participants.
• Seek role models outside of the sport arena. Invite a successful businesswoman or female politician to come to the program and speak to the girls.
• Consider inviting men or women with a disability to come speak, as they often have a powerful impact on girls with and without disabilities.
• Discuss the concept of “negative role modelling” with girls, i.e., simply because a person is successful does not mean that they are worthy of being a role model. Challenge girls to evaluate virtues, values and expectations related to these role models.” [6]

RESOURCES TO LEARN MORE

In addition to the resources that are cited in the end notes (below), we also recommend a few additional resources.

• Women’s Sports Foundation- Designing a Quality Girls’ Sports Program
• Women Win- Engaging Girls in Sport
• Women Win- Guides

END NOTES

[1] Women Win, Empowering Girls Through Sport

[2] Women Win, Developing Girls’ Leadership

[3] Women Win, Girl-Led Design

[4] Women Win, The Power of Role Models

[5] IBID.

[6] IBID.