Developmental contexts and features of elite academy football players: Coach and player perspectives

Player profiling can reap many benefits; through reflective coach-athlete dialogue that produces a profile the athlete has a raised awareness of their own development, while the coach has an opportunity to understand the athlete's viewpoint. In this study, we explored how coaches and players perceived the development features of an elite academy footballer and the contexts in which these features are revealed, in order to develop a player profile to be used for mentoring players. Using a Delphi polling technique, coaches and players experienced a number of 'rounds' of expressing their opinions regarding player development contexts and features, ultimately reduced into a consensus. Players and coaches had differing priorities on the key contexts of player development. These contexts, when they reflect the consensus between players and coaches were heavily dominated by ability within the game and training. Personal, social, school, and lifestyle contexts featured less prominently. Although 'discipline' was frequently mentioned as an important player development feature, coaches and players disagreed on the importance of 'training'

Resilience amongst Australian Aboriginal youth: an ecological analysis of factors associated with psychosocial functioning in high and low family risk contexts

Abstract: We investigate whether the profile of factors protecting psychosocial functioning of high risk exposed Australian Aboriginal youth are the same as those promoting psychosocial functioning in low risk exposed youth. Data on 1,021 youth aged 12–17 years were drawn from the Western Australian Aboriginal Child Health Survey, a population representative survey of the health and well-being of Aboriginal children, their families and community contexts. A person-centered approach was used to define four groups of youth cross-classified according to level of risk exposure (high/low) and psychosocial functioning (good/poor). Multivariate logistic regression was used to model the influence of individual, family, cultural and community factors on psychosocial outcomes separately for youth in high and low family-risk contexts. Results showed that in high family risk contexts, prosocial friendship and low area-level socioeconomic status uniquely protected psychosocial functioning. However, in low family risk contexts the perception of racism increased the likelihood of poor psychosocial functioning. For youth in both high and low risk contexts, higher self-esteem and self-regulation were associated with good psychosocial functioning although the relationship was non-linear. These findings demonstrate that an empirical resilience framework of analysis can identify potent protective processes operating uniquely in contexts of high risk and is the first to describe distinct profiles of risk, protective and promotive factors within high and low risk exposed Australian Aboriginal youth

The Right to Play

This issue of Early Childhood in Focus is published to coincide with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child's General Comment No. 17 which aims to strengthen implementation of children's right to rest, leisure, play and recreational activities (as set out in UNCRC, 1989, Article 31). 'The Right to Play' offers short summaries of theory, research and policy issues that can inform the implementation of Article 31. Section 1 is about the concept of play, the ways culture defines play in children's lives, the role of play within early childhood pedagogy and children's own views on play. Section 2 looks more closely at the function of play in supporting children's development, including social, emotional and cognitive benefits. Section 3 is about the opportunities and challenges for realizing children's right to play, including the pressures of early schooling as well as child work, and the implications of commercialization and the growing place of new technologies in young children's lives

Thriving not just surviving: A review of research on teacher resilience

Retaining teachers in the early stages of the profession is a major issue of concern in many countries. Teacher resilience is a relatively recent area of investigation which provides a way of understanding what enables teachers to persist in the face of challenges and offers a complementary perspective to studies of stress, burnout and attrition. We have known for many years that teaching can be stressful, particularly for new teachers, but little appears to have changed. This paper reviews recent empirical studies related to the resilience of early career teachers. Resilience is shown to be the outcome of a dynamic relationship between individual risk and protective factors. Individual attributes such as altruistic motives and high self-efficacy are key individual protective factors. Contextual challenges or risk factors and contextual supports or protective factors can come from sources such as school administration, colleagues, and pupils. Challenges for the future are to refine conceptualisations of teacher resilience and to develop and examine interventions in multiple contexts. There are many opportunities for those who prepare, employ and work with prospective and new teachers to reduce risk factors and enhance protective factors and so enable new teachers to thrive, not just survive

From positive youth development to youth’s engagement : the dream teens

In addition to the empirical validation of ‘health and happiness’ determinants, theoretical models suggesting where to ground actions are necessary. In the beginning of the twentieth century, intervention models focused on evaluation and empirical validation were only concerned about overt behaviours (verbal and non-verbal) and covert behaviours (cognitions and emotions). Later on in the middle of the century, there was a shift from treating the problems to a positive approach, focused on promoting assets and individual strengths. Thus, the role of social competences, self-regulation and resilience became salient. Researchers also highlighted the importance of social cohesion and social support, as active health and wellbeing facilitators. More recently, in the twentyfirst century, the population’s engagement (positive engagement) has become crucial. This paper presents the evolution of this theoretical and scientific path, using Portugal as a case study, where early interventions focused on the positive aspects of both covert and overt behaviours, while more recent interventions included explicitly the perspective of youth engagement and participation, as is the case of the Dream Teens Project. It is expected that the political and professional understanding of this trajectory will allow professionals to provide better health and educational services, improving young people’s engagement, quality of life, health and wellbeingpeer-reviewe