Jenny Coe refers to coach wellbeing as feeling good and functioning well which is why she believes it should be high on a sporting organisations priority list. This episode centres on what sporting organisations can do.

Jenny describes the role of organisations in relation to high challenge and high support for their coaches. Jenny believes great environments will prioritize coach wellbeing and produce happy people, great relationships and great conversations.

Jenny is the Player Care Lead to the Women’s Pro Game in the English FA, having previously worked for three seasons with West Ham Women’s 1st team as Head of Performance and Well-being. Before West Ham, Jenny held different roles within UK Coaching and UK Sport, working as a high-performance coach developer across 20 Olympic sports. She has designed and delivered female specific coaching programmes to support the coaches and their environments. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Suzanne Robinson shares her joy of coaching and describes how she manages her own wellbeing as a coach. The episode centres on the importance of ensuring circumstances where no one person can give more than they can sustainably give.

Suzanne highlights how summer and winter breaks can be healthy for coaches and other strategies which clubs and other sporting organisations can implement to support coach wellbeing. Suzanne paints a very clear picture of the potential pitfalls of coach burnout and how she has attempted to avoid this for both herself and others within her club environment.

Suzanne is a committed leader and long serving volunteer coach at Ripples Special Olympics Sports Club in the Portadown and Craigavon areas. She has supported participation opportunities in a range of sports for hundreds of club members over the years in addition to recruiting and supporting the coaches to volunteer within the club setting. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Mick McKinnon candidly shares his personal story of his own experiences in relation to coach burnout.

The episode focuses on the ability of the coach to switch off at appropriate times and the benefits of being able to talk with those who can listen in non-judgemental fashion. As the episode progresses discussion moves towards the need to raise the awareness and have open conversations about coach wellbeing. Mick describes the importance of recognizing the signs of burnout and strategies which can address such issues to allow for better coach wellbeing.

Mick McKinnon is an experienced hockey coach with decades of experience in the game. He has coached every level of hockey from grassroots to senior international level. Mick has recently been appointed to the role of Hockey Ireland Pathway Manager to create structures that will allow the support and development of players and coaches nationwide.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode highlights the importance of coach wellbeing and how the responsibility for wellbeing sits not only with the coaches through self-care, but also on the organisations who deploy and support them. Dr Peter Olusoga and Derek O’Riordan also highlight a number of pertinent strategies which can be impactful to reduce the chances of coach burnout.

The episode also focuses on how to potentially balance coping resources and role demands to ensure positive wellbeing outcomes for the coaches. Our guests discuss coach wellbeing as a performance advantage and what this might mean in the world of competitive sport.

Dr Peter Olusoga is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology. His current research focuses on stress, burnout, and well-being in sports, with a particular interest in high-performance environments and elite coaching. In addition to research, Dr Olusoga is a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society (BPS), and a sport psychology consultant. Peter is also the host of the fantastic Eighty Percent Mental podcast.

Derek O’Riordan is a coach, coach developer and coaching systems builder working with a range of sports. Derek’s research has focused on stress and coping, and how coach developers can support coaches to manage stress and avoid burnout. Derek is the co-host on the excellent Coaching Discord Podcast. We hope you enjoy this episode! 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.