Soccer Nova Scotia partnered with Canada Soccer on two strategic initiatives focused on enhancing gender equity and motivating more women and girls to pursue coaching and leadership roles.
The Telus She CAN Coach program caters to new coaches beginning their coaching journey by providing a foundational framework. The AccelerateHER program helps women seeking higher-level coach education by helping experienced coaches obtain advanced coach education diplomas. AccelerateHER provides comprehensive support to women through a progressive development pathway that adheres to the country’s top coaching standards and provides financial aid to assist with the costs of obtaining their advanced coach education diploma.
“The She CAN Coach program piloted in Alberta and Nova Scotia,” said Lindsay MacAskill, Soccer Nova Scotia’s executive director. “In Nova Scotia, eight clubs participated, attracting 86 women coaches in year one. This national initiative focuses on recruiting, developing, and training women coaches to tackle participation challenges in soccer. It aims to lower barriers for coaches to get involved in entry-level education. Online facilitated sessions occur before the in-person training day to create an inclusive atmosphere conducive to coaching growth, all provided free of charge. This effort intends to lessen entry obstacles for women in coaching, aiming to boost the registration of women and girls and help tackle the gender imbalance in participation.
“We also received AccelerateHER funding from Canada Soccer and sought additional funding from Support4Sport. This allowed us to provide bursaries to alleviate financial pressures and fund advanced coach education for three individuals from Nova Scotia. One participant is pursuing her A-diploma, the highest diploma available in Canada, while two others are on track to obtain their B-diploma. These funding opportunities have also been crucial in enabling us to offer a fully funded C-diploma, which serves as the entry point to advanced coach education.” MacAskill noted that the response to the C-diploma was overwhelming, with 50 applicants for just 30 spots.
“This shows that removing barriers to entry leads to a significant increase in participation,” she remarked. “We are reducing barriers by offering funds for transportation, accommodation, and childcare while offering the course for free. We have 13 She CAN Coach program graduates who are now pursuing their C-diploma, which is wonderful to see.”
In 2022, Nova Scotia had 568 registered female coaches, which increased to 643 in 2023. MacAskill is optimistic that this figure will rise by another 100 once the 2024 statistics are compiled.
Soccer Nova Scotia also runs a grassroots development program offering coaches formal training focusing on rural areas.
“From our standpoint, we are leading the country in addressing the gender gap in coach education,” MacAskill said. “We currently have a 47 per cent female participation rate among coaches, compared to 53 per cent male. We aim to close this gap in the future. We firmly believe having more female leaders and coaches in the game will encourage girls to stay engaged longer.”
