#328 Dr Ellie Gennings - Well-Being and Well-Becoming in Children’s Sport

I am delighted to speak with Dr Ellie Gennings in this episode. Ellie is a Senior Lecturer in Sports Coaching based in the Department of Sport and Event Management at Bournemouth University. Ellie is interested in children's wellbeing, children’s rights and safe sport. Ellie completed her PhD in 2022 in which she measured children’s wellbeing developing a wellbeing scale.   In this episode we discuss a fantastic paper Ellie led on entitled “A critical examination of children’s well-being and well-becoming in a professional youth football academy”.

I’m delighted to speak with Dr Peter Schneider in this week’s episode. Peter is an expert in high performance environments and transitions. He was most recently the mental performance coach at RB Leipzig helping them to win 2 DFB Cups and 1 Supercup. Peter’s focus is to help create talent development environments in which athletes, coaches, and parents are provided with the necessary information that leads to success at the professional level.   Peter’s area of expertise includes talent-development environments, transition into professional sport, group processes, coach-athlete relationships, and mindfulness in soccer. In this episode Peter and I discuss a range of psychological topics and Peter shares his experiences working with RB Leipzig in the German Bundesliga.

I’m joined by Jeremy Holt in this episode. Jeremy is an author, leadership team coach, trainer and mentor with three and a half decades of experience applying psychology to real-world teams in business, sport, and public service. Jeremy’s work with teams focuses on identity - the glue that binds people together and drives performance. As a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, Jeremy supports leadership teams and boards to create shared identity, clarity and cohesion, so that accountability flows naturally and performance becomes sustainable. Whether in the boardroom or on the training ground, Jeremy helps leaders build teams that are not just effective, but proud of who they are together. We speak about Jeremy’s new book “For the Love of the Game: How to coach identity, belonging and performance in sport”. The book has been written for grassroots and youth sport coaches who care about the people in the shirts as much as the results on the scoreboard. Drawing on years of experience and grounded in social identity research, Jeremy introduces the TRIBE protocol– a practical and powerful method for building a team identity that fuels belonging, commitment and high performance.

I am delighted to welcome back high-performance coach Dr Ian Peek in this episode. Ian works with clients to improve performance and well-being, helping them achieve their goals whether that’s transitioning to a new level of achievement or maintaining their position at the top of their sport or industry.  Ian is a PGA Master Professional - the highest educational level in The PGA - which recognises PGA Members who make a significant effort to improve themselves as golf professionals and maintain the highest degree of excellence for themselves and their operations. In this episode Ian shares his 35+ years’ experience as a high-performance coach working with clients with both performance and well-being in mind.

I’m delighted to speak with Ray Power in this episode. Ray is a coach developer and best-selling author of 10 soccer coaching books. He is also the Technical Director of the largest football academy in South Asia. Ray has coached at every level of football, from youth at risk to elite youth internationals. He achieved his UEFA A Licence in 2012 and has worked in youth football development all over the world since, including with the FA, Sunderland AFC and Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protishtan (BKSP), the national sports institute of Bangladesh. Ray’s series of soccer coaching books combine to make him the best-selling football coaching author globally. Ray works with every level of coach through Ray Power Coach Education, offering webinars, 1:1 mentoring and football curriculum development. 

I’m delighted to speak with Prof Mike Wilson in this episode. Mike has over 16 years of dedicated expertise in the mental health field. Serving as both a professor and mental performance coach, Mike has collaborated with international governments, leading international bodies like the United Nations and the World Bank, law enforcement agencies, and a diverse range of global sports organisations. Their impactful work includes championing mental health as a human right, providing psychological capacity building for refugees and lower-income communities, facilitating essential support through hygiene distributions for marginalised groups, engaging in post-war peace-building via sports initiatives, and advancing community development through potable water projects. Mike shares his knowledge and experiences as a sport psychologist touching on areas such as growth mindset, challenge and threat states, resilience and explanatory styles.

I’m delighted to speak with Ben Franks in this episode. Ben is a people developer and Senior Lecturer in Applied Coaching Sciences at Oxford Brookes University. Ben has been at Oxford Brookes since 2021 after holding various teaching positions at The University Campus of Football Business and at Canterbury Christ Church University.   Ben also consults and coaches at a variety of organisations. He is Head of Youth and Junior Football at Sevenoaks Town FC. His areas of expertise are Ecological Approaches to Perception, Action and Cognition, Non-Linear Pedagogy and Human Movement and Skill Development. Ben is currently undertaking a PhD.

I’m delighted to welcome back licensed clinical psychologist and sport psychologist, Dr Scott Goldman in this week’s episode. Scott started out at the University of Arizona where was one of the first embedded sport psychologists in an athletic department. He has since served as a clinical and performance psychologist for the University of Michigan and Saint Louis’ Athletic Departments. Scott also helped co-author the best practices for the NCAA and was part of their first mental health task force.   Scott has worked as sport psychologist for the Miami Dolphins and Detroit Lions NFL teams and NBA teams Washington Wizards, and currently the Golden State Warriors.   Scott is also the owner/developer of a test called the The Athletic Intelligence Quotient (AIQ) which measures intelligence that is most relevant to athletic performance. The test is used across all 5 major leagues in the US as well as in other countries around the world. Scott is heavily involved in the NFL Scouting Combine and we speak about the psychology involved in the selection process.

I’m delighted to speak with Dave Bright and Dr Oliver Runswick in this episode. Dave is a coach and Senior Lecturer in Sport Coaching at Chichester University. His main research interests are in motor learning and its application to practical sport coaching. Dave has coached martial arts for 25+ years. And it was from his experiences in coaching that led him to do a Sport Science Coaching degree, then a Sport & Exercise Psychology Masters degree. Dave’s current role requires him to develop undergraduate students as sport coaches, providing them with an awareness and understanding of the underpinning motor learning and coaching research. Dave is undertaking a PhD investigating the effects of cognitive load and autonomous task selection in motor learning. Ollie is a Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London. His research focuses on understanding and enhancing learning and performance in domains including sport, dance, education, and the military.  Ollie is the Editor in Chief of Perceptual and Motor Learning Skills at Sage Publishing and a Human Performance Technology Consultant providing consultancy in virtual reality applications, skill acquisition and motor learning, perceptual-cognitive skill, training/practice design, talent ID and development, vision in performance and performance systems. Ollie received a first-class BSc in Sport and Exercise Science from Swansea University, MSc in Human Movement Science from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, PGCHE from St Mary’s University, and PhD from Liverpool Hope University where he studied perceptual-motor skills based with St Mary’s University’s Expertise and Skill Acquisition Research Group.   Dave, Ollie and I discuss a paper they co-wrote along with Dr Jenny Smith, Dr Philip Kearney which compares two learning conditions - task-related autonomy and cognitive effort. Research has shown that both feelings of autonomy (as supported by OPTIMAL theory) and cognitive effort (as supported by Challenge Point) can positively impact skill development. This research paper aimed to compare these two approaches to learning. Results showed no differences between the effects of autonomy and cognitive effort, but uncovered participants use of tactical learning to improve. We unpack the paper and discuss its real-world application for coaching settings.

I’m delighted to welcome back coach and coach developer, Dr Jamie Taylor in this episode. Jamie’s interests lie in performance enhancement in sport, specifically in coaching, coach development, high performance and talent development. Jamie is Assistant Professor in Elite Performance at Dublin City University and a senior coach developer at Grey Matters, a company specialising in performance enhancement and coaching development for individuals, sporting/cultural organisations and systems. In this episode, Jamie and I discuss his new book, co-edited with Prof Dave Collins, entitled ‘Sport Skill Acquisition: Integrating Theory and Practice’. The book carefully and critically considers the expanding knowledge of skill acquisition and motor control, with a focus on application, examining three major theoretical perspectives that dominate the field: cognitive, ecological dynamics, and predictive processing. Jamie and Prof Dave Collins use their combined wisdom as coaches, coach developers, and expert sport psychology practitioners to offer practical advice on blending theoretical approaches, using examples from a variety of sports and activities. For those looking to improve their work with performers, Sport Skill Acquisition provides a road map for choosing the best approach for each unique situation to develop skills for optimal sport performance.