Ms Louise Keane:

While sustaining the programme is a barrier, a lot of our clubs have done it incredibly well. A lot of it comes from the goodwill. People volunteer on that programme for a reason. I ran it myself in my own club in Naas and there is a real feel-good factor as a volunteer to be involved in that programme. That gives a huge amount of running power and sustainability to it. However, coach education is a huge part of it. A huge factor is making sure our coaches and volunteers are equipped to deliver the programme but also to deal with any situations that may arise. There is obviously a variety of needs within the members and the families who are participating so it is about being able to equip our volunteers to be able to deal with those situations. What we have learned from feedback is that a lot of our clubs find that having SNAs as volunteers is really helpful because they deal with those situations every day in the schools and have that experience.

A lot of our programmes work with transition year students and integrate them as coaches. We can give as much training and education as we can, but to have that older, more experienced person to be able to guide them with the experience and knowledge they have is invaluable.