Equine Canada Coaching Developments

On July 5 & 6 the National Coaching Committee, along with Provincial representatives from British Columbia and Quebec attended very successful 2005 Equine Canada Coaching (NCCP) Summit and Long-Term Athlete Development meetings held in Ottawa. Over the two days a number of experts presented on various topics related to coaching.  As a result of these meetings, a number of items were validated and accepted and action plans were put into place to continue moving forward with the NCCP transition.

A presentation of the Sport Canada generic Long-Term Athlete Development (LTAD) model was provided by Charles Cardinal, a Sport Canada appointed LTAD project coordinator. One of the objectives of the LTAD model is to help to ensure that coach education programs are complementary to the long-term athlete development principles and to ensure optimal athlete/coach development needs are met.  During the NCCP Summit the National Coaching Committee approved the Sport Canada LTAD model initiative and proposed moving forward by developing a steering committee to lead in the development of the LTAD model for Equestrian.

An Equestrian specific Participant Development Model (PDM) and Coach Development Model (CDM) which have been created for the NCCP coaching transition were discussed in detail during the July meeting.  Additional input was provided by all equestrian disciplines to ensure that both models encompass all Equestrian sports accurately.   The PDM and CDM developed for Equestrian sports were validated and approved by the National Coaching Committee.

Vicky Andrews, a member of the NCCP Instructor Beginner working group for Equestrian, provided a status report on the Instructor Beginner development.  Since February 2005 the Instructor Beginner working committee has created, refined and piloted the Instructor Beginner Overview, Instructor Beginner Rubrics, and the Instructor Beginner Recording Tools.  All three tools were positively accepted and approved in principle by the National Coaching Committee.  All Equestrian disciplines have taken the generic Instructor Beginner Rubrics back to their representative coaching committees to create a discipline specific rubric which will later be submitted for approval. This will result in an Instructor Beginner context across all equestrian disciplines.

The National Coaching Committee has developed an action plan to continue the Instructor Beginner context moving forward.  The first stage in the action plan involves taking an inventory of all existing learning resources across all disciplines that is currently available as a resource and learning material for coaching candidates.  Upon completion of the inventory analysis of learning resources it will be determined what can be combined, and what is missing, which in turn will lead to the development of missing learning resources and training material required by coaching candidates to successfully proceed through the evaluation process.

A presentation was made to the National Coaching Committee regarding the status and development of the Eventing Competition Development program.  During this presentation, panels of representatives from other Olympic sports were brought in to discuss their progression through the NCCP coaching transition and describe the processes and challenges their sports had experienced while advancing through the NCCP transition.  This panel also provided valuable insight to Equestrian for our advancement in this transition.

A common Equine Canada Appeal/Dispute Resolution Policy for Coach Certification and Evaluation was presented and approved during the July Coaching Summit. The committee has requested to put this new policy into effect immediately after translation into French and English has been completed.  Upon the completion of translation a copy of this new Equine Canada policy will be forward to all provincial associations and made available to members. 

Equine Canada is a member-based association that represents, promotes and services Canada's equine community and industry. Its core areas of activity involve sport, equine health and welfare, education and safety, governance and marketing, representation and communication. Equine Canada is recognized by Sport Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the International Equestrian Federation (FEI), the Canadian Olympic Committee and Canadian Coaching Association of Canada as the national organization representing equestrian sport and equine interests in Canada. For more information about Equine Canada, please visit www.equinecanada.ca.