PLAYBuilder Q&A with Sport North Federation

Sport North Federation is dedicated to the development of sport at every level of participation in the Northwest Territories. Their Community Sport Development & Physical Literacy Engagement Facilitator Spider Jones recently connected with Sport for Life to talk about why his organization has decided to embrace the PLAYBuilder app to support their quality sport programming. 

S4L: Why did Sport North Federation decide to team up with PLAYBuilder?

 S.J.: We were trying to get access to the Yukon’s PLAYBuilder Physical Literacy packs, which target primary grade school teachers as part of the PLAY (Physical Literacy & You) NWT Committee initiatives. We also wanted to develop a video and lesson plan resource for parent leads in our Common Vision Champions – Breaking the Cycle initiative. The goal was to offer purposeful and fun games and activities to promote physical literacy in children two to six-years-old in select remote NWT communities.

S4L: What challenges was your organization facing?

S.J.: Physical inactivity remains a deep concern in the north, especially amongst youth in NWT. Fewer physically literate kids mean fewer kids learning fundamental movement skills, which reduces the likelihood of them engaging in lifelong movement activities such as sports. We wanted to face some of the perils of inactivity, including childhood obesity and diabetes.

S4L: Why was PLAYBuilder the right choice to take your organization into the future?

S.J.: We were impressed with the strong base of lesson plans and videos, as well as the capability to create our own activity packs that target two to six-year-olds for use by parents as well as early childhood staff/educators. If we hadn’t discovered PLAYBuilder we would still be on the hunt for similar resources or we’d be forced to create our own.

S4L: Did you intend to share full access to PLAYBuilder with your members?

S.J.: Yes, we intended to share full access to our sport fraternity members. Additionally, we planned to share it amongst interested school teachers and recreation coordinators throughout the Northwest Territories.

S4L: What measurable benefits have you seen since implementing PLAYBuilder?

S.J.: We’ve yet to formally determine the efficacy of our investment. We have a number of licenses that have still not yet been assigned, though we have gained significantly more interest with the addition of the Yukon Department of Education’s Physical Literacy packs.