Club Development Conference Explainers
Explore the sessions on offer at the Club Development Conference and discover what you can expect to take away from the day. From leadership and safeguarding to facilities, marketing, wellbeing and creating positive club environments, each session is designed to provide practical insights and strategies that can be applied at your club.
Keynote – Keeping Girls in Football: What the research reveals and what we must do next
Professor Philip Morgan, University of Newcastle
Teenage girls are leaving sport at alarming rates at precisely the stage when participation can have the greatest impact on confidence, wellbeing, friendships, belonging, and mental health. Yet our research suggests the issue is not girls themselves. The problem is not that girls don’t want to play football. The real challenge is whether sporting environments are meeting their developmental, social, and emotional needs.
Drawing on insights from the groundbreaking Daughters & Dads Football program and one of Australia’s most comprehensive investigations into girls’ sport participation, this keynote presents practical, evidence-based strategies for keeping girls engaged in football. Led by the University of Newcastle as part of the NSW Office of Sport’s Play Her Way initiative, the project combined evidence reviews with focus groups and national surveys involving adolescent girls, coaches, parents, and teachers.
Hear directly what girls told us about their experiences with coaches, parents, teammates, school sport, and the barriers and opportunities shaping their participation. Most importantly, discover the solutions girls themselves identified for making sport an experience they want to continue.
The presentation introduces four practical, evidence-based principles shaped by the voices of adolescent girls, who consistently told us they remain involved in sport when they feel safe, valued, connected, supported, and capable. Clubs, coaches, and volunteers will gain actionable strategies for translating this evidence into everyday practice to improve participation, retention, and wellbeing.
This keynote challenges common assumptions about why girls leave sport and provides a hopeful, evidence-informed roadmap for creating football environments where girls want to stay, thrive, and belong.
What teenage girls need from Football and how clubs can deliver it
Professor Philip Morgan, University of Newcastle
What does it actually look like to create a football club where teenage girls want to stay? This interactive workshop moves beyond the research to explore practical, immediately applicable strategies that clubs can implement to improve girls’ participation, enjoyment, and retention. Participants will examine the specific actions coaches, committee members, volunteers, parents, and club leaders can take to better support teenage girls.
The workshop introduces the University of Newcastle’s new evidence-based toolkit for improving girls’ participation, retention, and wellbeing, developed in partnership with the NSW Office of Sport. The toolkit is designed to help clubs evaluate and strengthen their culture, coaching practices, communication, facilities, competitions, and overall player experience.
Grounded in contemporary evidence and the voices of adolescent girls, the session explores why girls are more likely to remain involved in sport when they experience safety, belonging, voice, positive relationships, confidence, and enjoyment.
Participants will leave with a practical framework, concrete examples, and tools that can be implemented immediately to create more welcoming, engaging, and supportive football environments for girls.
Keynote – Leadership fundamentals
Monica Beazley – Leadership Coach & Facilitator, Monarch Management
An introduction to the everyday behaviours that shape leadership and culture in football. This keynote challenges common leadership myths and explores how everyone can have a positive influence, offering simple ways to lead with greater confidence and intention, whatever your role in the game.
Your leadership style in action
Monica Beazley – Leadership Coach & Facilitator, Monarch Management
A practical workshop to help participants understand their leadership style and how it impacts others. Through guided reflection and activities, participants will explore their values and strengths, recognise how they respond under pressure, and identify actions they can take to lead more effectively in their club.
Introduction to de-escalation in Sport
Mark Roach – Manager Sport Integrity, NSW Office of Sport
De-escalating challenging behaviour is critical to building a safe environment that protects everyone involved in sport. This workshop will develop practical skills that help to manage challenging behaviours on the ‘sidelines’ and around sporting activities.
Why child safeguarding matters in Football
Matt Sibley – Director, Sports Safe Solutions
A general overview of child safeguarding policies and concepts, with quick tips highlighting why we need to take safeguarding seriously. I’ll also outline the WWCC and how reporting works.
Implementing effective child safety measures at the committee level
Matt Sibley – Director, Sports Safe Solutions
Highlighting key steps that committees can take to safeguard their clubs – recruitment strategies, risk management, monitoring coaches, MPIO, safer platforms for communicating with families/kids, and taking concerns raised seriously.
Child safety for coaches: Keeping kids and yourself safe
Matt Sibley – Director, Sports Safe Solutions
With this coach-specific session, we’ll focus on situations and scenarios a coach can face, and ways that clubs and coaching leads can support their coaches to stay safe. This will include online behaviour, mums and dads filming, emergency procedures, and high-risk environments.
The best ability is availability – keeping players healthy, happy and available to become champions
Dr Matt Whalan – Titled Sports & Exercise Physiotherapist, applied researcher and sport scientist
Injury is one of the key reasons players of all ages stop playing sport. This session will explore how we can make football safer for all players and strategies to keep players available to train and play from youth to adult.
Wellbeing by design: Supporting your people
Holly Fuda – Founder & Director, Tude – Performance & Wellbeing Consulting
Wellbeing is often discussed in sport but rarely explained. What is it, really? And how does it show up differently for a 14-year-old player, a volunteer coach, and a committee member juggling football with family and work? This session starts there: building a clear, evidence-based picture of what wellbeing is, how it is shaped by the club environment, and where clubs can influence it. You’ll leave with a simple framework for identifying who wellbeing initiatives should target, along with practical, low-cost ideas you can adapt to your own club, regardless of its size, location, or resources.
Drive brand through story
Natalie Gatt – Founder and Creative Director of Nat Gatt Brand Studio
Drive Brand Through Story is a 40-minute working session for grassroots club committees: they build their club’s purpose, values, and target audience live on a worksheet, then see how that same brand story becomes a stronger, more tactical sponsorship pitch.
Club Changer – State of play
Maddison Kamolins – Participation, Grassroots & Amateur Coordinator, Football Australia
Hear from Maddison Kamolins, Club Development lead at FA, as she provides a Club Changer update as well as discussing the benefits of Club Changer with a Football NSW Club and Association.
Club Changer – Introduction
Maddison Kamolins – Participation, Grassroots & Amateur Coordinator, Football Australia
Club Changer is Football Australia’s Club Development program. Hear from Maddison as she presents on the processes involved in working towards each star.
Positive Club Culture – Shoosh for Kids & Good Sports
Sarah Adams – Senior Community Development Officer, Good Sports
Andrew Prentice – Senior Community Development Officer, Good Sports
Jess Moran – Shoosh for Kids, Senior Marketing and Digital Advisor, Media Marketing & Strategic Engagement – NSW Office of Sport
Good Sports is a program designed to support community sports clubs to reduce harms from alcohol and drugs, fostering a healthier, safer, and more family-friendly environment. The program will strengthen your club policies and practices around alcohol consumption, sales and management, illegal drug use, safe transport, safe celebrations, and mental health.
Shoosh for Kids is a program designed to encourage positive spectator behaviour at junior sport via education and digital assets – using a very simple message: Keep it positive. Keep it fun. Keep kids coming back to junior sport!
Facilities and grants 101
Helen Armson – Group Head of Strategic Partnerships & Corporate Affairs, Football NSW
An introductory session that outlines the basics around project planning and grant applications. A great starting point for clubs who are new to this space and are interested in helpful tips and strategies as they plan for facility upgrades or grant applications.
Marketing, data & communications 101
Nicholas Amies – Marketing Manager
An introductory session that outlines marketing and communication strategies and structures for grassroots clubs. With a data focus to understand how clubs can best utilise the data and reports that come from PlayFootball to support attraction, retention, and club direction.
Coaching Steam, Block 1 – Introduction to the CCC program
Paul Higgins – Grassroots Coach Development Lead – Football NSW
Introduction to the Club Coach Coordinator program within the grassroots landscape to prioritise the football experience, player enjoyment and coach support. This workshop will set up the program and the training day for CCC’s.