Platform launch by Algorhythm with Vita Sports, New York Community Trust and Laureus Sport for Good demonstrates SBYD impact

Every season, we see the young people in sports-based youth development (SBYD) programs come into their own on the field, the court, and the rink. The personal skills that develop through being part of a SBYD program can stay with a person forever. However, until now, they have been tough to measure!

In 2016, with the support of The New York Community Trust, Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, and Vita Sports Partners, we piloted Hello Insight: Sports, a new tool within the Hello Insight platform that measures the social and emotional learning (SEL) capacities best nurtured by SBYD programs. After collecting and analyzing thousands of survey responses to ensure reliability, we are excited to share that Hello Insight: Sports is now fully automated and available to the broader SBYD field.

HI Sports helps answer critical questions every sports-based youth development program needs to answer to understand and enhance their impact:

1. What are young people’s assets and greatest areas of challenge when they enter our programs?
2. How can we help them grow?
3. Do young people develop SEL in our programs?
4. Are they having high quality program experiences?
5. How can we improve our program next season?
6. How can we make meaning of our data, share our findings with funders and key stakeholders, and celebrate our success?

Mark Griffin, Founder of Vita Sports Partners, stated:

“We are incredibly excited about the launch of Hello Insight: Sports and in the outcomes from the pilot that we worked on collaboratively for the last 18 months. In addition to Laureus and Algorhythm, I would also like to take the opportunity to thank the New York Community Trust for their core support of Vita, and Up2Us Sports, who as a lead provider nationally in SBYD coach training, played a pivotal role in the design of the surveys.

The ability for us all to use research-based, validated tools to assess our impact not only enables each of our organizations to individually increase opportunities available to the young people we serve, but also allows us to collectively  demonstrate the impact of our sector. In doing so, we aspire for every young person to thrive through sports.”

HI Sports was based on more than 4,000 young peoples’ responses across 24 organizations nationwide. The pre/post SBYD tool measures nine social and emotional learning outcomes including self management, social capital, social skills, academic self-efficacy, positive identity, contribution, self confidence, goal orientation, and social connection.

Each of these capacities is a research-based, valid measure — with no bias across age, grade, gender, or ethnicity. These specific SEL outcomes were important to our pilot partners because they aligned well with Up2Us and UNICEF’s High Impact Attributes frameworks and resonated with the work being done in SBYD. Mounting research also shows that, as SBYD program promotes growth in these capacities, contribution to longer-term outcomes also occur, including  increased academic skills, positive behaviors, reduced risky behaviors, improved career readiness, and, ultimately thriving, happy, and healthy young people.

In addition to using complex machine-learning algorithms to demonstrate real-time programmatic outcomes among participants, the other unique feature of HI Sports is the connection it makes between those outcomes and the experiences of young people. In providing recommendations on how to improve programmatic experiences, the platform enables both coaches and program managers to continuously improve their programs.

During the pilot, several SBYD programs were outperforming the more than 300 youth development programs in the Hello Insight platform. These organizations received our annual Hi Impact Award which puts the spotlight on high-performing organizations and programs so that they can share stories of how they are able to achieve so much success in the development of young people.

Our HI Impact analysis has shown that prioritizing young people was a critical feature of SBYD programs. This data-driven insight is backed by staff perception. A coach from Play Rugby USA stated:

The players are the center. The players can feel this and appreciate it. They know that the coaches have their best interests. If winning is the top priority, you can’t have the player be the top priority. Tim Pare, Play Rugby USA

Peer-to-peer team work was another key feature driving SEL outcomes. As HI Impact awardees said:

It is not about winning, it’s not about earning as many points as possible, it is about how we get to those points — together. Kip O’Rourke,  Play Rugby USA

Debriefing is more powerful when it comes from the team – when they rely on and learn from one another. - Kalila Hoggard, Dream

We also learned that not all young people were interested in sports when they began SBYD programs. Instead, they were interested in a sense of belonging, engaging with peers, and working on a team. Each of these organizations did an amazing job tapping into youth interest and finding the right position for each young person, both--on and off the field.

Through cost-effective annual subscriptions, Hello Insight is now available to all sports organizations across the country. Schedule a demo now to learn more about Hello Insight: Sports and how it can help you make continuous improvement a key part of your practice through easy-to-use evaluation resources and ongoing learning.