Thanks to funding from Sport England through the National Lottery, the Youth Sport Trust has created free online resources for young athletes and their parents in partnership with NGBs.

On NSPCC Parents in Sport Week, the charity which pioneers new ways of using sport to create a brighter future for young people, has said that athlete education is so much broader than mastery of the tactical and technical aspects of sport and that things like balancing training, competition, and social lives alongside school work are critical in our support of these young people striving to maximise their potential.

Ali Oliver, Chief Executive from the Youth Sport Trust, said:

Today’s young people already face a raft of issues which are widely documented and can be heightened when asked to compete at the top level.  It’s important that we have support mechanisms and education programmes in place to help the next generation of elite athletes to thrive in their lives in and beyond sport. This Sport England Lottery Funding allows us to reach and support so many of those young people in partnership with governing bodies and organisations such as UK Anti-Doping.

The Youth Sport Trust identified a need to engage parents of talented young athletes and provide them with the tools they need to support young athletes on talent pathways.

Online support, ideas and education is being placed into the pockets of parents and carers through an app which has been designed with the input of leading sports professionals and academics and uses the Youth Sport Trust’s 20 years of accumulated expertise in this area. It covers topics on the science of being a young person, balancing education & sport and competition support.

For more information about YST Talent visit www.youthsporttrust.org/yst-talent or the free Performance Parent app can be downloaded from the app store by searching 'Performance Parent'.