The Fight for Peace Life Champions course is designed to equip sports coaches with the skills and confidence to support young people in all aspects of their lives, both within and beyond sport. As an approach, it has been employed by Fight for Peace and shared with partner organisations for more than a decade, initially via a face-to-face training course and more recently, in an online format.
The latter form of the course was developed by Fight for Peace in partnership with UK Coaching and launched in August 2024. In the intervening period, 212 coaches have enrolled on the course, with 95 completing it to date.
Feedback from participants on the course indicates that Life Champions is having a profound impact in helping coaches build confidence, develop leadership skills, and feel more connected to a national network of peers.
One participant, a basketball coach, shared that “the mindset of the coach [content in the course] really improved [her] way of thinking when approaching real-life situations,” while a fellow learner, this time a coach of gymnastics, explained that the course gave her the “tools and confidence to step up in [her] club and support young people better – especially those facing the same challenges [she] grew up with.”
Over the last six months, the roll out of Life Champions has seen Fight for Peace strengthen its engagement with grassroots coaches based in marginalised communities in particular.
66.7% of course participants work in areas ranked in the bottom 50% of the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), with 48.5% in the bottom 30%. Meanwhile, the course has proven popular with young coaches (56% of participants are aged 17–34) and among both men and women (43% of participants are female and 48% male).
As part of ongoing learning and evaluation of the course, Fight for Peace worked with partner Tamworth Boxing Club to analyse the impact of embedding Life Champions content into their boxing sessions with 30 young people over a six week period. The results showed not just improved sporting behaviour among young people, but stronger social and emotional skills too – key building blocks for young people’s wider development.
Beth, a Level Two coach at Tamworth Boxing Club shared that since becoming a Life Champions coach, she feels like “it’s really allowed [her] to take a little step back and reflect on [her] sessions and what [she’s] delivering.” Meanwhile, other coaches who took part in the pilot reported that “it’s made [them] think more about why we’re doing things,” and “it created a bit of a better relationship with [the young boxers]”.
“Life Champions reflects our deep belief that coaches have the potential to make profound changes in young people’s lives,” says Fight for Peace CEO Lee Hemmings.
“We see this on a day to day basis via our sports provision at the Fight for Peace Academy, and it is wonderful to now see coaches of all different types of sports, and from all different locations, benefitting from the new online format of the course. We look forward to seeing an ever growing number of Life Champions trained coaches, from around the country and around the world, impacting young people both in sport and beyond.”
Life Champions is a self-paced online course, costing only £30 and equipping participants with four CPD points. Those interested in knowing more and enrolling onto the course can find out more here, and can get a taste of some of the practical activities here.
