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Youth Development

The USC develops programs and initiatives on a regional and national level to enhance the work being done locally to promote the youth participants’ development as players and people.  Current USC Initiatives include:

National Youth Leadership Institute 

“Service through Soccer”: A Service Learning Program

National Youth Leadership Institute

The Institute targets high school–aged youth for a week of coaching education, service learning training, goal setting workshops, college prep sessions, and cultural/educational experiences.   

The 2010 Leadership Institute

Youth Coaching Youth:    A Youth Coaching Education Coarse

Participants will focus on how to coach elementary and middle school age youth in urban soccer youth development programs.  They will address various issues unique to urban soccer programs, learn how to include healthy life style curriculum, and examine the fundamentals of developing a practice session and how to insure adequate physical activity during the session.

Setting Goals:        Youth Development Workshops

Workshops will focus on:  goal setting, college prep, and careers in soccer.  Students will learn how to assess their academic, athletic and personal goals and use the assessments to develop individual action plans. “Careers in soccer” will provide a look at various professions such as sports agency, team management, sports medicine, coaching, etc.  The students will learn how to assess their interests and talents and start making contacts in those fields through internships.

Service through Soccer:    Service and Leadership Training

Students will plan a mock service-learning project and then use that exercise to create a simple service-learning project to implement with the participants in their sponsoring programs at home.  They will end the week with a local service project in Cincinnati.

The Freedom Center:    Cultural/Educational Experience

The Institute will open with an interactive tour of the Freedom Center, an educational center dedicated to telling the history of and lessons learned from slavery and the existence of the Underground Railroad.  The center tells these lessons in three sections: courage, cooperation, and perseverance (the theme of the institute).  Each day of the institute will focus on one of these themes.

For more information on the 2010 Youth Leadership Institute

Read about the 2009 Youth Leadership Summit

 “Service Through Soccer”: A Service Learning Program

Service Through Soccer is focused on developing youth-led service learning projects in the following areas: education, community development, physical fitness and nutrition, and environmental concerns/ safe places to play. Youth leaders develop projects at the Youth Leadership Institute to be implemented with their peers in their local organizations.