Sports4Kids: Putting the Play Back In School Playgrounds
Location
Sports4Kids places a full-time coach at low-income schools to harness the power of play to engage children in physical activity and social development
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Sport
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Year the initative began (yyyy)
1996
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Project URL (include HTTP://)
Positioning of your initiative on the mosaic diagram:
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Sport is trivialized
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Leverage the fun factor
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic:
This field has not been completed
Name Your Project
Sports4Kids: Putting the Play Back In School Playgrounds
Describe Your Idea
Sports4Kids places a full-time coach at low-income schools to harness the power of play to engage children in physical activity and social development
Innovation
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence?
Sports4Kids places a full-time coach at low-income schools to harness the power of play to engage children in physical activity and social development
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field?
Sports4Kids uses play to address two problems faced by low-income urban children – a severe lack of opportunity for physical activity and conflict-ridden school environments - by effectively meeting a critical need for principals to have qualified staff at recess. We gain entry to schools by offering a full-time, trained person to organize and lead games at recess, a service for which principals are willing to pay nearly 50% of the annual cost. Once the Sports4Kids coach is on the playground teaching the rules to games like four-square, kickball, and double-dutch, recess is transformed from chaos to safe, organized, and active play. The presence of the coach, who arrives with a hundred games in their back pocket, effectively solves principals’ recess problem and then inspires all of the children to get involved. By combining fun games with conflict-resolution skills like rock-paper-scissors, Sports4Kids creates a positive environment on the playground that ripples into the classroom.
What are the existing barriers, the biggest problem, your innovation is hoping to address/change?
Children often come to school not knowing how to play. They haven’t had opportunities for unstructured play due to concerns about safety in their neighborhoods. This reality is exacerbated by a growing emphasis on standardized tests, effectively squeezing out time for physical activity. As a result, childhood obesity is on the rise, playgrounds have become a source of conflict and strife, and ultimately learning is compromised as teachers spend valuable class time resolving playground issues.
Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing?
Sports4Kids works exclusively in low-income public schools, where poor health outcomes and lagging test scores are most prevalent. At each school we place a full-time coach who implements five program components during and after the school day:
- Recess: Coaches teach games every day at recess to create a structured, safe and inclusive environment on the playground.
- Class Game Time: Coaches partner with teachers to deliver a play-based physical activity curriculum based on youth development principles and focused on basic skill development.
- Junior Coaches: Teachers identify students to participate in leadership development activities. These students become playground leaders during recess.
- After-School Program: Coaches coordinate after-school physical activity and academic enhancement programs.
- Interscholastic Leagues: Coaches facilitate interscholastic sports leagues after-school that emphasize basic sports skills, teamwork and healthy competition, and involve families.
How do you plan to grow your innovation?
Sports4Kids serves 50,000 students in 130 schools across the US. We are launching a 5-year growth plan that relies on two critical factors for scaling impact. First, we’ll continue to emphasize direct service by expanding to more schools in our current geographies while adding new cities. We can achieve rapid growth because principals are willing to pay nearly half the program cost. This earned income validates the value of the service and provides a solid foundation for achieving financial sustainability. Second, we’ll complement the direct service model with a technical assistance business that serves non-Sports4Kids schools. By training educators and others who work with children, Sports4Kids can exponentially increase its impact. Specifically the 5-year growth strategy calls for:
- Expand school programs from 130 to 650 schools.
- Expand geographies from 4 to 27.
- Increase the number of non-Sports4Kids schools receiving training for teachers and other staff to 4,000 schools.
Impact
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact.
Sports4Kids increases children’s physical activity, reduces playground conflict, and creates a fun, engaging recess so kids are able to learn.
What impact has your innovation had to date/or what is your intended impact? Exactly who are the beneficiaries?
Sports4Kids has grown from 2 schools in 1996 to 130 schools in 2007. Our programs reach 50,000 children including a minimum of 45 minutes of daily physical activity for every child during recess and class game time. 80% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch.
- 96% of principals in their first year with Sports4Kids credit the program with decreasing the number of students standing or sitting at the side of the playground.
- 73% of these principals say fights on the playground have declined since Sports4Kids came to their school.
- 68% of teachers report that playground conflicts are less likely to continue in the classroom and 73% say Sports4Kids has improved their ability to facilitate physical activities with their students.
- Finally the impact on the young adults who serve as coaches is noteworthy. As the nexus of play at their schools, they have a transformative experience that instills in them a belief in their own power as changemakers.
How many people have you served directly?
Over the past twelve years, Sports4Kids has directly served 107,000 unduplicated youth, many for multiple years. Sports4Kids has also directly served the 5,300 teachers who taught those students through class game time. Projected growth over the next five years will find us serving 650 elementary schools in 27 cities in 2013 or 260,000 students in that school year alone. In 2013, Sports4Kids will be serving 13,000 teachers.
How many people have you served indirectly?
Indirectly, Sports4Kids has served 100,000 families. We expect to reach more than 200,000 families in 2013 when expansion enables Sports4Kids to serve 650 schools.
Please list any other measures reflective of the impact of your innovation?
Sports4Kids has responded to requests from across the globe to collaborate in the development of high-quality play-based programs for kids. Our staff have worked with the Magic Bus in Mumbai, India and EMEP in Capetown, South Africa, to provide trainings for local youth workers. Sports4Kids also coordinated an emergency-response effort in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina sending ten teams of staff to Houston to lead games during recess at schools serving children displaced by the disaster.
What are the main barriers to creating or achieving your impact?
1. Growing from 4 cities to 27 will rely heavily on attracting and training capable staff in each geographic region. We’ve already learned that local staff are critical for effective programmatic replication.
2. We must refine our technical assistance model so that we can succesfully convey our deep knowledge of the power of play to teachers and other staff in schools where we don’t have a full-time presence.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)?
Sports4Kids has developed four main sources of financial support:
1. Sports4Kids collects school fees, ($22,000-23,500 per school per year). Earned income is approximately 45% of income.
2. The Corporation for National Service funds half of our coaches through AmeriCorps.
3. As Sports4Kids grows, we are increasingly focused on corporate partnerships that offer benefits to the corporations and their employees. We expect corporate support to provide 12-15% of income.
4. Foundations have long been a source of support. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has provided significant funding for national expansion. This strong national partnership is helping us establish local foundation relationships in each of our expansion cities.
If known, provide information on your finances and organization.
• Annual budget: (2007-08) $8,874,694
• Annual revenue generated: (2007-08) $8,894,224
• Number of staff: (2007-08) Full-time - 184, Part-time - 2, Volunteers - 200
What is the potential demand for your innovation?
According to interviews with principals, the potential demand for Sports4Kids in urban areas is significant. At schools where Sports4Kids doesn't operate, principals overwhelmingly identified recess as the worst time in the school day and the source of fights, discipline issues and suspensions. Staffing recess is especially challenging because teachers are not typically on playground duty. For schools designated as Title I schoolwide there are funds available to improve school climate.
What are the main barriers to financial sustainability?
Sports4Kids main barrier to financial sustainability is securing enough individual and corporate support as the program grows in each city to replace the foundation dollars that are typically available for the “start-up” phase in a new community.
The Story
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story.
As an only child, Sports4Kids’ Founder, Jill Vialet eagerly sought out playmates at Macomb Street playground near her home in Washington, D.C. She was willing to play anything – kickball, basketball, football, whatever was going on. Fortunately the recreation activities were led by a large, gregarious man named Clarence, who made sure Jill got to play, despite protests from the boys that a girl couldn’t keep up. It was Clarence’s dogged advocacy on her behalf that shaped Jill’s passion for play. This was the genesis of Sports4Kids – an organization dedicated to making sure every child has a Clarence in their lives.
Jill says: “One test of a good idea is the degree to which it solves a difficult problem. There is a deceptive simplicity to the idea that play can solve several of society’s most troubling challenges. We’re proud of the significant impact our program has in schools. Our clients, principals and teachers, are thrilled with the transformation of recess from chaos to organized fun and the ripple effect in the classroom. But this good idea is only as powerful as the number of people it reaches, either directly in schools or indirectly through training. Sports4Kids has proven it can replicate in new cities and we have a sustainable financial model. My vision is that Sports4Kids will systematically change the way schools utilize play, increasing opportunities and supporting play as critical for improving children’s cognitive, social and physical development.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material.
Jill Vialet, Founder/President, has focused her entrepreneurial skills on building two successful organizations. Jill launched Sports4Kids in 1996 with two schools. She believes Sports4Kids will redefine what it means to play in America. Prior, Jill founded the Museum of Children’s Art (mocha) in Oakland, CA, where she served as Executive Director for 9 years. In 2004 Jill was awarded an Ashoka Fellowship. Jill graduated from Harvard University and attended public high school in Chevy Chase, MD.
How did you hear about this contest and what is your main incentive to participate? (this is confidential)
Ashoka first brought the Changemakers competition to our attention, though we also were encouraged to apply by staff of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. We are committed to creating a model that achieves its full impact so we see the Changemakers competition as an opportunity to communicate with more people about our unique brand of play.
Affiliation (please list all that apply)
jill Vialet is an Ashoka Fellow, and a graduate of Harvard University, Sports4Kids is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grantee.
| Attachment | Size |
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| RWJF_Sports4Kids_RecessReport.pdf | 412.44 KB |
| S4K Harvard report FINAL.pdf | 389.33 KB |
| S4K_FlagFootball014.jpg | 466.04 KB |
| S4K_FlagFootball014.jpg | 466.04 KB |
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Comments
Wycliffe Mboya Ngoya
CEO and the Director
Sacrena Sporting Organization
P.O.Box 138-40123
Kisumu-Kenya
Tel:+254 724 799 727
email:sacrenakenya@yahoo.com
email:wycliffemboya@yahoo.com
skype name:sacrenakenya
Wycliffe Mboya Ngoya
CEO and the Director
Sacrena Sporting Organization
P.O.Box 138-40123
Kisumu-Kenya
Tel:+254 724 799 727
email:sacrenakenya@yahoo.com
email:wycliffemboya@yahoo.com
skype name:sacrenakenya
Wycliffe - I'd love to try and figure out ways to work more with groups in other countries. I mentioned in our submission that we have partnered with groups in Mumbai and Cape Town, and we're trying to figure out how to send some staff back to Cape Town this Spring for a more extended visit in which we would work with local practitioners to develop a program supported by the Ministry of Sport. Perhaps if we had staff visiting in Africa, we could arrange for an excursion to Kenya.
But we'd also like to figure out how to work with people without having to physically send staff -- we have experimented with training videos http://www.cartoonrecessweek.com/volunteer.html#video
But these are aimed at volunteers in US elementary schools and I worry that while I believe our larger approach has great relevance internationally, this particular approach might not convey that. I guess my question back to you would be, if you could have us do anything at all to help you make your program stronger while also enabling us to learn from your experiences and approach, what would you have us do?
Jill Vialet
President/Founder Sports4Kids
www.sports4kids.org
Jill,
I actually think your idea of the videos is a really interesting one. It seems to me that this could be a worthwhile type of collaboration that could go in both directions, i.e. in the form of cultural knowledge by having the videos adapted by local groups with local context and cultural relevance. It is also a great way of getting around the really expensive expat volunteer model that currently dominates. There are a few other organizations in the competition that have video based elements. In addition, we have been working with a group called insight (www.insightshare.org) who has been training groups in participatory video, this could be an interesting project for them. Chris lunch is the contact there: clunch@insightshare.org
http://www.cartoonrecessweek.com/volunteer.html#video
Best,
Ziba
Hi Ziba - I checked out insight -- totally cool and looks like it would work really well with our model. I'll email Chris -- I'm always looking for a great excuse to go to France! It'd be good to connect them with Arnaud and the Ashoka UK folks too.
Hope you're well, Jill
Jill Vialet
President/Founder Sports4Kids
www.sports4kids.org
Good morning Jill (if I may), we have an innovative way of introducing kids to golf in Marrakesh, and something which can be easily and cheaply copied elsewhere in North Africa, the Middle East and further afield. Our website gives an apercu although we need help in building some presentations etc to help persuade local authorities and business that we can all break done barriers. Our website is www.golfwithoutfrills.org and I welcome any comments/suggestions you wish to give. have a nice day, Murdo
Hello Jill,
Thank you for sharing your program. How does you program address and respond to the dominant norms and values in US sports culture that so deeply impact and influence the status quo of youth sports in and out of school throughout the country? Do you see your program as an approach to changing the paradigm of youth sports, and to desconstructing these broader norms and values?
Thank you again, and look forward to your reply.
All the very best,
Eli
Eli A. Wolff
Manager, Research & Advocacy
Center for the Study of Sport in Society
Northeastern University
e.wolff@neu.edu
Hey Eli - That's a great question. I really do see our emphasis on play as the key to ensuring that sport realizes its full potential as a tool of positive social change. So our program really tries to tackle the dominant norms head on -- for example, when our kids play Four Square, you can't yell "You're Out!" -- you have to say "Nice Try!" and if you say "You're Out!" you're out! We've had staff initially resist, complaining that we're making kids say things that they don't really mean (it's possible to say "Nice Try" in a host of ways that convey you don't really mean it) but they almost always come around to an understanding of the practice that is closer to the Buddhist understanding of intentionality. If we ask the kids to practice kindness in the thick of competition and create structures that compel them to go through the motions, there is a great likelihood that it will become true. I grew up playing anything and everything, and I'm ridiculously competitive, but I also have a profound understanding that unless I have someone to play with, someone to play against even, there is no game.
So for us, it's all about making it fun and playful -- reminding the kids and adults who are involved that the best thing about sport is getting to play -- with all the myriad human connections that that entails. We work with staff to be aware of language, we mix in competitive and non-competitive games, we make animal noises, everything possible to keep it silly and playful and fun and inclusive.
Jill Vialet
President/Founder Sports4Kids
www.sports4kids.org
I really, really *love* this idea! The power of playing simply can not be underestimated. It serves children, and our society present and future, in innumerable ways. This reminds me of a speech by Sir Ken Robinson given at TED. I think you will love it. The link is: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/66.
I am writing because I would like to learn more about the measures you are taking to ensure that you are finding quality coaches as your demand for them grows.
I know that, in the case of many such volunteer opportunities for young adults which have expanded broadly and quickly, the time and resources invested in each individual volunteer is often lost. Without proper preparedness, the volunteers' effectiveness is limited, and an organization that once served a profound purpose becomes questionably effective.
As a graduating college senior, I've looked at many such opportunities, but have never given them much thought because of the stories I have heard from volunteers past of their lack of preparedness and guidance as they sought to serve in such positions. Too often I have heard the worst-case scenario: experiences that seemed to the volunteer a waste of everyone's time and money, simply because the volunteers did not feel prepared with the skillset or resources necessary to get much done. I know that there are staunch advocates for these same programs, but I haven't found one of those outside of recruiting fairs, somehow. The idea remains great, but over time the effectiveness of the program eroded... I can only think that this was a byproduct of expansion; expansion diluted the investment in properly preparing volunteers. In many ways, I know that these other organizations are very different from yours, but the challenge, I think, is the same.
I am very encouraged by the fact that you seek local volunteers to serve as coaches; I am only wondering what measures will be taken, beyond this, to assure that volunteers are prepared and otherwise well taken care of? How do they get all those games in their back pocket? How do they learn all they need to know about leadership and children? It seems this position is conferred a great deal of influence in these children's lives, and also that it requires a great deal of investment on the part of coaches, so I look forward to hearing more about how you will ensure that through this rapid expansion you will continue to provide great coaches.
And, once more, I really love your project. Recess has always been my favorite subject.
Lindsey Witmer
Student Ambassador
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
Lindsey -- First off, we're hiring for next year, so if you're interested, check out http://www.sports4kids.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=60&...
And I'll definitely check out Sir Ken.
I think you're absolutely right that there is a tendency in the field to send people out to work with kids without adequately preparing them for the task at hand. At Sports4Kids we have a mandatory two week pre-service training, and we have trainings throughout the school year, along with supervision and support that enables our staff to deal with the myriad of issues that arise. As we have grown, the training and the consistency of the support we offer staff in the field has been the object of fierce focus and I'd argue that we have gotten better at it as we have grown -- more consistent, more concrete and explicit in setting goals and expectations and supporting people when things aren't going well.
One last note: one of the key insights, and maybe the thing that is most truly innovative about our approach, is that we offered our staff a full-time paid job. I am convinced that it is because we are creating an opportunity for staff to fully focus -- not having to piece together a few other jobs, providing health insurance, etc. -- that we create the necessary conditions for the staff to really apply themselves as changemakers in the schools where they operate. I think the implications are really interesting for other countries as well. I think Ziba mentioned in an earlier email that she thought the video approach was good in serving the international community because it represented a possible departure from volunteer expats coming in to offer sports programming. I know that some of the other groups are resistant to this for reasons that go beyond just the basic economics -- that volunteering ensures an intrisic motivation that is essential to program quality -- but I would be interested in al arger debate on this issue -- ultimately, to employ sport as a tool for socail change, do we need to make sure that we are employing people in the communities where they live to deliver high quality services?
Jill Vialet
President/Founder Sports4Kids
www.sports4kids.org