CCCP Revamped

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St Vincent and the Grenadines recently played host to a Training of Trainers workshop on the revised Caribbean Coaching Certification Programme (CCCP). The workshop brought together coaches from around the Caribbean including Guadeloupe and was coordinated by this country’s National Olympic Committee (NOC).
The CCCP is now the property of the Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees (CANOC), an organization established in 2003 to facilitate collaboration between NOCs of the region including those of French, Dutch, Spanish and English-speaking nations.
CANOC has been keen on ensuring that the region is adequately served with coaches from the most basic level through to the elite level.

CANOC
CANOC was established to facilitate regionalism through sport. It was in recognition that the NOCs of the Caribbean have a very important role to play in the development of the peoples of the region that the NOCs began giving consideration to the formation of a unified body in 1999. Of course the NOCs of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) had already commenced working together since 1994.
CANOC members have come to the recognition that with resources accessible through the International Olympic Committee and its continental arm, the Pan American Sports Organisation (PASO) they can, collectively, positively effect change in the approach to sport development and by extension national development in the Caribbean.
The road has not been easy but the members remain committed to working together and in so doing help to build a better, more unified Caribbean.
The organization holds and annual General Assembly.
At its most recent General Assembly CANOC approved the establishment of several important Commissions including Olympic Solidarity, Sport and the Environment, Women and Sport and preparations for the Olympic Games of 2012. If all goes well and these Commissions become effective the entire sports movement in the Caribbean can experience significant progressive change that would redound to our peoples.
At a time when the world seems to be changing rapidly it is important for an organization like CANOC to engage in positive interventions through the medium of sport and physical education.
 
Education and Training Commission
In 2010 CANOC established an Education and Training Commission with a mandate to facilitate the development of systematic strategies and programmes for the membership.
The Education and Training Commission, chaired by Angel Morales of the USVI’s NOC, adopted the following objectives:
To provide a forum for the discussion and implementation of ideas and programmes for the development of sport, athletes, administrators, technical officials and other sports professionals
To maximize and fully utilise all the available human, financial and technical resources in the promotion and development of sports, physical education and recreation through training, competitions, sports medicine, sports facilities, sports administration and marketing.
To Promote Sport For All
To promote strategies for the development of social capital across the Caribbean
To encourage educational training and development programs to meet the needs of our regional coaches
To encourage training and development programs for our regional athletes, particularly in terms of careers after sport
To encourage training and development programs for our regional medical and therapeutic personnel
To develop a volunteer management structure
To increase the number of committed stakeholders and volunteers through awareness and education
To collaborate with regional stakeholders in the broad areas of training and education.
To provide guidance in the building of a talent identification structure for sports organisations
Since being established the Commission has been eagerly pursuing its mandate and in the process has already positively impacted developments within the region.
It is important to note that the focus is on both physical education and sport.
The Education and Training Commission has spent much time reviewing the Caribbean Examinations Council’s syllabus on Physical Education and Sport and two workshops have already been planned for this year to take the review process forward. Importantly, the Commission holds the view that the entire approach to physical education and sport has to change. Work must begin in this regard at the pre-school level where teachers must appreciate the importance of these twin-disciplines in the overall development of the child.
The Commission has prepared programmes funded by Commonwealth Games Canada (CGC) and the Organising Committee of the Pan American Games 2015 (TO2015) for 2012 and beyond. The hosting of the CCCP workshop in St Vincent and the Grenadines was the first programme undertaken by the Commission.
 
CCCP
The CCCP is a foundation programme for coaches. It is not sport specific. This means that it is generic and applicable to all coaches of all sports.
The content of the CCCP offers material that every coach should know. It begins with encouraging coaches and potential coaches to understand themselves and the athletes with whom they are working. This is critical to their collective success.
The important feature is that coaching is about building character not just about getting the athlete to elite status as fast as possible. The CCCP coaches manual speaks to coaching for character. All too often coaches see athletes as their own passports to success without paying due attention to the fact that as a human being the athlete must develop character. At the end of his/her collaboration with a coach he/she should emerge a better person, generally. The role of the coach in achieving this is clearly spelt out in the manual.
The CCCP encourages the coach to appreciate his/her role as a leader in sport and in doing so, be ever mindful of the long-term development of the athlete.
It takes approximately six years to facilitate the graduation of a beginner athlete through to elite status under normal circumstances. Such an approach ensures that the systematic development of the athlete takes into consideration the chronological age, the developmental age and the training age of each one under the coach’s management.
It is important to recognize that athletes of the same chronological age are not necessarily at the same developmental age or training age and therefore the coach must prepare programmes to suit each athlete and avoid adopting the ‘one size fits all’ approach.
The Long-Term Athlete Development model as prepared by the Canadians and which has been universally accepted suggests the following:
Active start – Boys 0 – 6; Girls 0 – 6 years
FUNdamentals – Boys 6 – 9; Girls 6 – 8 years
Learn to Train – Boys 9 – 12; Girls 8 – 11
Train to Train – Males 12 – 16; Females 11 – 15
Train to Compete – Males 16 – 19 +/-; Females 15 – 18 +/-
Train to Train – Males 23+; Females 21+
The CCCP also facilitates the learning of physical skills required for all sports, general fitness, sport nutrition, rest and recovery, safety, injury and recovery, the fundamentals of developing training programmes to suit the needs of athletes under one’s care and concludes with an insistence on fair play and working with athletes with disabilities.
The new manual used at the workshop in St Vincent and the Grenadines 20 – 21 January 2012 has replaced the one developed some 15 years ago when the CCCP was first introduced in the Caribbean. CANOC thought that after 15 years in operation the time had come for a comprehensive review of the manual and the approach to training coaches in the Caribbean consistent with the changing environment, developments in coaching and the changing nature of our athletes.
For the session in St Vincent and the Grenadines each participating NOC was asked to send an individual who would be its National Coordinator for the CCCP at home in the future. During the session it was also discussed that should the individuals perform creditably in his/her new assignment he/she may be elevated to the position of National Technical Coordinator of Director of the respective NOC, thereby further professionalizing the organization.
 
The future
The CCCP graduates are in many respects an important component of the branding of CANOC across the Caribbean. Should the graduates take their assignments seriously there is little doubt that they can give impetus to the development of coaching across the region and impact the global scene by engaging in research and development in the future.
While the Caribbean is replete with sporting talent the sustainability of a successful tradition in sport relies heavily on the performance of our coaches and this through the years.
CANOC can work wonders in the Caribbean if all NOCs commit time and again to working together for the collective best interest of the region. Our coaches play an important role in this regard.
It is perhaps fortuitous that the first Training of Trainers of the CCCP with the revised manual took place here in St Vincent and the Grenadines. It locates us at the very core of another initiative seeking regionalism. What is now required is successful implementation.
Over now to our coaches.