The CAO's mandate of coaches helping coaches actively provides encouragement, nurturance, education and training to all the dedicated men and women coaches working in Ontario sport. A key part of achieving these goals is recognizing that the number of women coaches in Ontario lags far behind the increasing number of female sport participants - a trend recently addressed in the Coaching Association of Canada (CAC) national study, Women in Coaching: A Descriptive Study (2007).
Both the CAC and Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport and
Physical Activity (CAAWS) have advocated for increased numbers of female coaches, officials and leaders in the Canadian sport system. Citing the lack of women coaches at the senior and decision-making levels, both of these organizations have a lengthy history of developing a number of programs to help women achieve the necessary skills to advance within the coaching ranks. Many women for example, have achieved tremendous accomplishments in competitive sport and can readily translate these experiences into the coaching realm - to draw on this expertise means to develop a sport system that is inclusive of a range of coaching styles. The CAC provides extensive mentoring programs at the national team level, apprenticeship programs, and a well written Canadian Journal for Women in Coaching demonstrating its commitment to Canadian women coaches.
While community-level sport has a strong representation of women coaches in voluntary roles, the numbers decrease as the competition levels increase. For example, the 2003 Canada Games Coaching staff included 39% women (165 of 425 coaches); the overall number of women coaches increased for the 2007 Canada Games but the overall percentage remained the same at 39% (180 of 461 coaches). At the Olympic levels the numbers of women coaching is far from the numbers of successful female participants: at the 2004 Summer Olympic Games, only 10% of the 86 coaches were women whereas female athletes achieved 50% of Canada's medals; at the 2006 Turin Olympic Winter Games, 15% of accredited coaches were women while female athletes gained 67% of the nation's medals (CAC, 2006).
Go to CAO's Action Plan for ONTARIO WOMEN COACHES
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