Parents play a crucial part in supporting the involvement of their children with football.
The Football Association aims to help parents play a positive role, recognising that involement in football can greatly influence the development of children, both in the football envirnment and in their overall lifestyles.
As a result, The FA has launched Soccer Parent, the latest programme in our Football Development Strategy, to work positively with parents, with the intention of raising both standards of behaviour and knowledge, as well as looking to attract new volunteers to the game.
You can get involved with Soccer Parent through two routes.
Firstly, football club leaders and coaches will be running courses for parents, using specially designed resource packs and a Soccer Parent Video featuring Ashley Cole and Rio Ferdinand as well as Spacey and her former England team mate Mo Marley.
Secondly, The F.A. has launched an on-line version of the programme, which is accesible from the link below. Parents, coaches, teachers and young players will find a whole host of interactive information, games, puzzles and downloads aimed at getting the Soccer Parent message across.
"The E-Learning project is fantastic for this sort of thing," explained Les Howie, The FA's National Club Development Manager and the Course Director of Soccer Parent. "The whole thing is going to be really interactive and fun, with games and video clips and cartoons. We'll have a penalty shoot-out, for instance, but you won't be allowed to take your penalty unless you've correctly answered a question about touch-line behaviour, for instance."
The on-line Soccer Parent course will explain how clubs and schools can organise a Parents Evening to communicate good practice in a fun and friendly way. But the beauty of the internet and its 24-hour access is that the whole course can be easily completed at any time by anyone who has access to a computer.
As the coach of a children's team you have a lot of responsibilities. Soccer Parent is designed with coaches and parents in mind to provide guidance on specific areas that focus on the key issues involved when a child joins a football team.
As well as being designed to be informative, fun and engaging, one of the key aspects of the course is that coaches are given advice to assist in gaining positive contributions from parents as well as understanding issues on specific areas such as child welfare and attitudes.
Soccer Parent is a completely free online course that is available to anybody that registers with FA Learning – The FA’s Educational Provider. Everyone that completes the course and achieves the pass mark can immediately print off an accredited certificate directly from the website.
For more information contact the Football Development Office on (0114) 2414992