Community Builder
Funded support for child-first coaching in your local area
The Play Their Way Community Builder programme is exploring how child‑first coaching, grounded in children’s rights, can be embedded across diverse localities and coaching contexts.
The programme’s second phase of funding, running from 2026 to 2027, will aim to embed lasting change in coaching practice, organisational culture and the systems and networks that shape how coaches develop.
Sustainability is the focus of this phase. Changes made during the programme should continue to grow long after it ends.
How To Apply
Expressions of interest are open now until Tuesday 30th June 2026
Apply to become one of three Identified Organisations or one of three Regional Hubs, depending on what best suits your organisation. Applications can be submitted in any file format and should be no longer than three pages. We want to hear your authentic voice.
Full details and submission guidance are available in the expression of interest documents for organisations and hubs. Submissions should be sent by email to [email protected] by 30 June 2026.
How Phase 2 Will Work
There are two ways to get involved in this newly evolved programme. Both pathways will provide funding to help organisations get things off the ground. See which path suits your organisation or circumstances best.
Organisations
We have three contracts for organisations to join Play Their Way for an immersive 18-month journey.
The aim is to spark a movement from within, championing child voice across your organisation’s entire culture.
Together, we’ll grow your own child-first advocates and Coaching Guides, and help shape a national community of practice.
Regional Hubs
We want three regional hubs to spread child‑first coaching across their networks. We want to spark new ideas and reach communities beyond the programme’s reach. A hub could be:
- Network amplifiers with wide regional influence
- A sport or sector body rooted deeply in grassroots relationships
- Community anchors with unmatched proximity to underserved young people
What We Are Looking For
Phase 2 is not only designed for the largest or most established organisations. It is designed for the right ones.
Both programmes are backed by funding. This allows us to focus on organisations and hubs with a genuine commitment to child-first coaching, the conditions to sustain this work, and the will to make it last beyond the life of the programme.
We are looking for diversity across the partners we select. Different sports and activity areas, different locations, different communities, and different populations of children.
Three organisations that look the same will generate narrower learning and less transferable insight.
We are particularly committed to ensuring that the programme reaches coaching communities and populations that are currently underserved. We’re actively seeking out hubs and organisations with reach into communities where formal coaching pathways have limited presence and the case for child-first coaching is most urgent.
Apply Now
What happened in Phase 1?
9 Play Their Way Community Builder Projects, 1 Mission: Localise Child-first Coaching
Phase 1 established momentum, built a growing community of child-first coaches and organisations, and generated real learning about what it takes to shift practice.
The Community Builder programme has explored how child‑first coaching, grounded in children’s rights, can be embedded across diverse localities and coaching contexts.
We’ve worked with nine local organisations, including NGBs, Active Partnerships, Community Clubs and a University to connect local networks, amplify youth voice, and challenge traditional coaching norms.
Reaching over 400 coaches, the Pilot has demonstrated the power of Play Their Way to shift mindsets and create sustainable pathways for change in the future.
Energise Me have successfully recruited a new Workforce Officer. Part of this role will be to oversee a continuation of the localised Play Their Way network we established here in Hampshire, promoting the campaign in conversations with NGBs, clubs and coaches.
Workforce Manager, Energise Me
Learning and Insight
We promise to work collaboratively with each hub and organisation to add value in shaping how they localise child-first coaching.
Play Their Way Phase 2 is designed to generate credible, transferable insight about what it takes to embed child-first coaching within organisations and networks.
The programme builds structures for honest sense-making. It offers monthly reflective conversations with organisations, quarterly cross-hub learning sessions, programme reviews every six months, and collective reckoning.
In addition, we are offering a unique development opportunity for coaches from within chosen organisations and hubs as part of our commitment to supporting the learning and development of the coaching workforce within the programme:
Child-First Changemakers and Child-First Coaching Guides
Phase 2 is powered by two embedded roles designed to shape change from within organisations and hubs and to last long beyond the funded period.
Child-First Changemakers
Changemakers are advocates for children’s rights in coaching. They champion every child’s right to a voice and real choices, putting the UNCRC into action through everyday decisions and conversations. They come from many backgrounds: coaches, content creators, community advocates, social media voices. They’re united by credibility, influence and a commitment to child first coaching.
Child-First Coaching Guides
Guides support coaches from inside their organisation or regional network. As part of the environment, rather than external trainers, they offer grounded, relational support that helps child first coaching stick. They work with the whole coaching workforce, with a special focus on developing Changemakers and building capacity from within.
How will we support the Changemakers & Guides?
The Spark is a new two-year inspiration programme. It’s the engine that fuels the thinking, confidence and ambition of our 10 Child First Changemakers and Guides.
Across a mix of in person and online sessions, Changemakers meet provocative thinkers, researchers, coaches, rights advocates and community leaders from inside and far beyond sport. Each guest brings a fresh perspective and a bold idea, a 30-minute spark that leads into guided conversation and personal reflection.
This isn’t training. It’s mindset shifting. It’s about challenging assumptions, opening new possibilities, and sending Changemakers back into their environments with questions that create real change.
Running from Autumn 2026 to Winter 2027, The Spark offers:
- Two in person gatherings to build energy and connection
- Four online sessions with diverse voices and new provocations
- A final collective reckoning, where Changemakers make sense of the journey and shape a shared output for the wider Play Their Way community