Coaching
In order to assist you in the opportunity to support young athletes through their sport experience, we have compliled a number of resources to assist and support coaches from the community, club or high performance levels.
The coach education system in Canada has been evolving through the New National Coaching Certification Program or NCCP. There are an incredible number of great programs for you as a coach in the areas of sport specific training as well as multi sport courses where you can take part in a progressive learning environment with coaches from a variety of sports. The first place to start is with your specific Provincial Sport Organization.
Becoming a Certified Coach
To become a coach or develop coaching skills, the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) is a coach training and certification program for more than 60 different sports. The NCCP program has ungone revamping in the past years and is now made up of three streams and a total of eight contexts, each with its own coaching requirements. Each sport is responsible for identifying how many of the eight contexts are relevant to their sport.
| Community Sport Stream | Competition Stream | Instruction Stream |
| Initiation | Introduction (Part A & B) | Beginners |
| Ongoing Participation | Development | Intermediate Performers |
| High Performance | Advanced Performers |
Training in Competition Stream |
PART A o Make Ethical Decisions o Planning a Practice o Nutrition | PART B o Design a Basic Sport Program o Teaching and Learning o Basic Mental Skills |
- Contact your Provincial Sport Organization to confirm the course and paths you may require, click here to find contact information.
- Minimum age in Alberta for a multi-sport module is 16 years old
- The cost for either Competition - Introduction Part A or Part B is approximately $100.00 for the 13 hour course
- Coaching training schedule in your area, click here
- Home Study option
- Make Ethical Decisions (MED) – online evaluation
Also availabe from The Coaching Association of Canada are many resources to help coaches better understand the NCCP.
Visit the website at www.coach.ca or for further information on the NCCP transition refer to the following documents :
- New NCCP model
- Program overview of the new NCCP
- Fact Sheet for New Coaches
- Fact Sheet for Current Coaches
- NCCP Chart
Canadian Sport for Life
Canadian Sport for Life is a movement to increase sport's contribution in Canadian society recognizing sport as an important part of everyone's life by promoting each child's healthy and logical development in a sport or physical activity.
In this website you'll find information explaining the importance of sport for all ages and stages by giving children the skills that they need to develop Physical Literacy for both healthy life long enjoyment and for sporting success. Whether you're a parent, a teacher, an athlete or coach you'll find details which will help you deliver quality programs.
Long Term Athlete Development Program (LTAD)
The new coaching program is based on the Long Term Athlete Development Program (LTAD). LTAD focuses on the general framework of athlete development with special reference to growth, maturation and development, trainability, and sport system alignment and integration.
The following document will guide coaches through the CS4L system
Canadian Sport for Life Resource Paper
This document outlines the 10 key factors influencing LTAD and the stages of LTAD as they apply to athletes and sport in Canada. Serving as an introduction to LTAD, CS4L discusses the impact of LTAD on parents, coaches, clubs, sport science and the education system. CS4L is the first Canadian LTAD document published.
Repect in Sport
Respect in Sport, is Canada's only interactive, online certification program to protect our youth and enhance an organization's mandate for safe, fun and respectful environments for all. Respect in Sport was developed as a grass-roots online tool so sport and community organizations can now actually deliver on their commitment to creating a safer environment for all participants; coaches. managers, trainers, administration and volunteers and even parents.
Respect in Sport is the program you need to train your organizations' personnel and youth leaders to recognize, understand and respond to issues of bullying, harassment, abuse and neglect. It may be the single most important training your leaders can receive to create a safe, healthy, and positive environment for our children and youth!
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