Attend Workshop on Using Sport to Address Trauma at the International Trauma Conference

Up2Us Sports Chief Program Officer Megan Bartlett will be leading a workshop on using sports to address trauma with Lou Bergholz and Sean Rose on May 31, 2017 at the 28th Annual International Trauma Conference in Boston. More information on the workshop below.

REGISTER HERE

Workshop Title:
Harnessing Your Competitive Spirit: Physical activity, trauma-sensitive coaching, league-level play, and the intervention methodologies that are shaping sports-based stabilization

Workshop Overview: 
Interested in a healing medium rooted in competency, self-regulation, identity, physical activity, rituals, routines, and pro-social connection?  Then you are interested in the unique role that sport can play in healing.  This pre-conference, on the emerging field of sports-based stabilization, will bring together practitioners from the clinical and sport worlds to examine the ways in which sport can be shaped into a therapeutic modality.  Participants will spend the day exploring the key elements of the sports-based stabilization framework: unlocking the power of physical activity; learning the skills of a trauma-sensitive coach; and, embedding the core therapeutic elements into the sport experience to create a league that promotes healing.  By participating in a sport training session, participants will learn firsthand the elements of a trauma-sensitive warm-up, how to build competency through sport drills, and the hidden opportunities that exist in sport to facilitate therapeutic conversations.  Leading practitioners in the field of sports will further bring these elements to life through stories that describe the impact of their work in sport and trauma.  Participants will leave with a “playbook” of design principles and techniques that can be integrated into any intervention, but are ideally used to build a trauma-sensitive sports league.  

This pre-conference will be active and is designed for maximum accessibility.  No previous sport experience is required and participants of all abilities are welcome.  Comfortable clothing and athletic shoes strongly recommended.

SPEAKERS

Lou Bergholz Chief Knowledge Officer Edgework Consulting

Lou has been working on the frontlines of youth development for over two decades, from residential treatment centers to camps working with children infected and affected by HIV.  The Edgework team is dedicated to working with organizations, and communities to help them solve their complex people problems.  For close to 15 years Edgework has been creating trauma-informed interventions in the US and abroad that apply academic research and clinical practice to populations without reliable access to definitive clinical care.  

Sean M. Rose, M.Ed. Executive Director JRI Connecticut

Sean has more than 22 years of experience in education, treatment, and mental health with families, children, and adolescents. He has held various leadership roles in the public and non-profit sectors, and has successfully partnered with state and local government to advocate for and serve youth with complex trauma, mental health, and behavioral health issues. Over his career, Sean has successfully managed programs aimed at enabling youth to develop to their full potential, from residential to recreational. Most recently, Sean was appointed as the Executive Director for Justice Resource Institute’s Connecticut division. He earned a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from Lesley University and was awarded a master’s degree in education and school administration from American International College.

Megan Bartlett, MA Chief Program Officer Up2Us Sports

Megan has spent her career working in, designing, and advocating for programs that use sport as a tool for positive youth development.  At Up2Us Sports, she helped build the first national service program placing coaches as mentors for youth in underserved communities, and created the innovative training program that has provided thousands of coaches with the tools to take a trauma-sensitive approach to sport.  She has extensive experience working directly with youth as a college and youth soccer coach, camp director, and in community mental health. Megan earned a MA in Urban Policy and Planning from Tufts University and a BA in Psychology and Sociology from Wesleyan University.

2016: Looking Back on a Year of Up2Us Sports Coaches

Over the 2016 calendar year, we had nearly 500 coaches improving their communities through the Up2Us Sports coaching program.  We asked them to share their favorite memory.

Coach Maria - Touching Miami with Love - Miami, FL

Coach Maria and the rest of the Touching Miami with Love crew participated in a 5k walk to support one of our students who was diagnosed with Neurofibromatosis.

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Coach Jackie - Chicago Run - Chicago, IL

At the beginning of our season there was a boy who told me, “Miss Jackie, I don't think I can run a long race." I told him we are going to work hard and that he'll do great! On race day we found each other towards the end of the 5K and he told me how excited he was that he'd gotten this far. I said, “do you think you can sprint towards the finish line?” and he smiled and said, “I'll race you!” We raced together and once we were done he hugged me and said, “thank you for pushing me, Miss Jackie!”

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Coach Frank - Urban Initiatives - Chicago, IL

Honestly, my favorite moments have been seeing kids from schools that I'm no longer with. At countless game days, retreats, etc. I get so many high fives, hugs, and "COACH FRANK!”'s. That makes me feel like I made a difference in their lives with the year that I spent with them last year.

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Coach Noelia - Chicago Run - Chicago, IL

My favorite coaching memory happened this past fall during our fall race with the kids. I was running with one of my 4th students, Destiny, and it was her first 5k race. During the race she did great and kept a nice and steady pace, but the moment she crossed the finish line she began to cry happy tears because she didn't think she could finish the race. Seeing her believe in herself was my favorite moment as a coach this year.

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Coach Spencer - South Eugene Rowing Club - Eugene, OR

My favorite moment (or sequence of events rather), was coaching an athlete who had tried and failed multiple times to complete a certain workout. Eventually, with enough time and input, they were able to finish this challenging workout and feel good about it. I enjoyed seeing their boosted self-esteem and progress through the fall.

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Coach Zoe - George Pocock Foundation - Seattle, WA

One of my more challenging athletes had an unexpected gold medal win at regionals, exceeding everyone's expectations. At our end of year party, she let her guard down for long enough to share a moment of mutual respect and appreciation with me, and made me feel so good to feel like I had impacted the life of this kid in a positive way, since she had certainly done the same for me.

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Coach Jacinto - enFamilia - Homestead, FL

I believe this was a year of growth for me in Up2Us Sports. I believe I developed a deeper understanding of our mentorship tactics, strategies and techniques and was able to apply them more naturally and more effectively. I believe that my youth and I hold a stronger bond than in the beginning of the year and that I have a stronger influence in their lives. I'm personally thankful for the experiences that the Up2Us Sports staff leaders have granted me, including my horrendously executed first pitch at the Marlins game and the opportunity to learn about UM's basketball team culture.

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Coach Hel Say - Soccer Without Borders - Oakland, CA

There were a lot of my favorite memories from 2016, but my very favorite memory was when my girls won their first game during the season. Seeing the girls happy is one of the best feelings in this world. They came up to me with a big smile on their faces and said, "we did it coach Hel Say because we were working together and playing together as a team." They said, “we worked so hard and now we won!” I told them, “it's not all about winning, but I'm so proud of you girls - the way you treated each other with love, respect, and caring hearts makes me happy. Plus, you respected the other team and refs and that's what sport is all about.”

A Coach-Mentor's Reflections

By: Coach Lindsey

40 balls, 32 cones, 22 kids and 12 weeks. These are the numbers I was thinking about four years ago as I walked into an old gymnasium in Chester, Pennsylvania, an underserved community outside of Philadelphia. I clutched the Soccer for Success curriculum both nervously and excitedly. The integration of nutrition into soccer practices was right up my alley and I was looking forward to sharing my knowledge of both soccer and nutrition with my players.

22 kindergarteners, first-graders, and second-graders burst into the gym with huge smiles and clumsy feet, and that easily, my work had started. Throughout the first few weeks, both myself and my coaching partner, Dayna worked tirelessly to teach the kids how to dribble, pass, and most importantly how to keep their growing bodies healthy. Soon Dayna and I started building relationships with the kids and were able to see their strengths both on the soccer field and in their character.

Two players in particular caught on quickly to the logic of the sport and technical skills needed for the game of soccer - Eli and Emmanuel, a set of twins. They were basketball players at heart but within a few weeks, together, they were unstoppable on the field. Though they picked up the soccer skills quickly, they struggled with the nutrition portion of the curriculum. “But Coach Lindsey, fruits and veggies are yucky,” they would grumble. Both couldn’t grasp why we encouraged eating certain foods over others, and scoffed at us whenever we mentioned eating “a rainbow of foods”. Over the course of a few weeks, Dayna and I tried to reach the root of their issue with healthy foods. We found that the reason for this was because healthy food was not readily available to them.

That was when I realized how meaningful our positions as coach-mentors were. These kids needed extra guidance - someone to look out for them, someone to praise them, and someone who would support them on both their good and bad days.

Since then, I have coach-mentored at three programs in Chester, Pennsylvania, Orlando, Florida, and now in Washington, D.C. At each site the kids are different. However, the mission is still the same as when I walked into that gym in Chester four years ago: to create healthy lifestyles in kids and present them with life skills that they will use for years to come.

My favorite part of being a coach-mentor with Soccer for Success has remained the same - the gratification of seeing a player transform throughout the season.  In Chester, Camille came into the program angry and left at the end of the season smiling because she had found her balance within soccer. In Orlando, Tyree brought a salty and spicy snack every day to practice. By the end of the season, he would show up with an apple or carrots and would even share with some of his teammates. Samuel was encouraged to join DC SCORES, (Washington D.C.’s Soccer for Success program) by his mom who was worried that he was not socially outgoing. This season, he has shined as a defender and has made a good deal of friends that share his passion for soccer.

These are the stories of why I became involved and why I stay involved in Soccer for Success: the changes I see in the kids during the season are absolutely incredible, and have truly changed the way I view the sport I love, the kids I work with, and my outlook on life.

Every season, regardless of what city or program I’m working in, the kids make me a better coach. In return, I am gifted to help them transform into distinguished young leaders both on and off the soccer field.

Coach Lindsey is an Up2Us Sports coach thanks to the generous support of AmeriCorps.

Originally posted on the U.S. Soccer Foundation Blog.

Striving for Service, Rafael Became A Coach

Coach Rafael has had a sense of service for as long as he can remember. Growing up in Phoenix, Arizona, Rafael Padilla was most interested by artistic and creative pursuits. He was an avid writer and performed in a variety of theatre performances. Though he grew up in what he referred to as a “tough neighborhood,” he had positive creative outlets and strong adult role models that didn’t allow him to stray from his goals.

One of his goals, for as long as he could remember, was to join the United States military. Not only did he want to serve, he was adamant about serving on the front lines as an Army Ranger, the elite unit of the Army.

When he was 17, before he had even graduated high school, Rafael signed up for the Delayed Enlistment Program with the Army, setting him on the path to fulfill his internal call to service as soon as he graduated from high school. After clearing an initial medical hurdle that nearly derailed his plans, Rafael was sent to Fort Benning in Georgia to begin months of grueling training to become a U.S. Army Ranger.

After undergoing the physically challenging and mentally exhaustive training, Rafael was among about 30 individuals out of a class of 170 to successfully complete the program. He was deployed overseas four times during his time in the Army, once to Iraq and three times to Afghanistan. Rafael recounted his deployments, “it was pretty intense. We would go out every other night and they were very high impact missions, going out in the middle of the night to capture Taliban or Al Qaeda commanders.”  

After four and a half years, Rafael left the Army knowing that he had plans outside of the battlefield. Though he left the Army, Rafael felt like he never fully transitioned from the mindset that he had while enlisted. This is because before enlisting and throughout his years in the military, Rafael has had an undeniable dedication to service. While the army gave him a mission, now that he was once again a civilian he needed to find a new mission. “I realized getting out of the military, I had cultivated this mentality where I don’t want to do anything unless it has some sort of goals or purpose,” he said.

In search of this purpose, he briefly returned to Arizona, attending a local community college before moving to Los Angeles to further pursue his education and pinpoint his next professional challenge. He attended Santa Monica College before earning his degree, in creative writing, from Cal State Northridge. Shortly before graduating he learned about the Up2Us Sports Operation Coach program and recognized how strong a fit it was. “I immediately clicked with what the mission is for Operation Coach,” he said. “I realized that if I have a job or if I am going to be doing anything, I really want to do something where I am doing some sort of good and I am impacting something that makes me feel better and is helping out society.”

He found what he was looking for in Operation Coach and in August 2016, began coaching at Brotherhood Crusade, a Los Angeles based non-profit organization that attempts to improve the quality of life of individuals through a range of programs that include focuses on education, mentorship, and sports.

As a soccer coach, Rafael has tapped into his vast leadership knowledge and experience. While he was still in the army, Rafael and his unit were put through seven months of training between deployments. In addition to the physical and mental rigor of training, Rafael underwent intense leadership training that helped him take abstract ideas about leadership and turn them into the practical skills and confidence to lead. He has now supplemented this unique and invaluable leadership experience with the Up2Us Sports Coach Training. This training provides 35 hours of intensive training in positive youth development and trauma-sensitive tactics that coaches can use to develop trust-based relationships with their youth. In describing the training, Rafael spoke about the relationships he made and how the strategies he learned have helped him as a coach, “it equipped me with a wider set of tools to deal with kids if they are upset or angry.”

With so many tools at his disposal, Rafael works passionately everyday to improve the lives of the kids he works with and be the positive role model that was so important to his growth. “I expect myself to give the kids the hand that they need to succeed, as opposed to putting unnecessary pressure on people I go in there and try to be one among them, somebody they can lean on who will push them forward,” he said.

Rafael will continue to serve as a coach, mentor, and role model with Up2Us Sports through August 2017. All the while gaining experience working with kids as he prepares for his next challenge - becoming a teacher.