England women's coaches selected for elite development programme
Each year, UK Coaching welcomes 15 coaches from across sport onto their signature development programme - Women into High Performance.
The aim of the programme is to identify and develop coaches who have the potential to transition into high performance coaching.
This year we’re delighted to see two of our England development coaches, Jen Herst and Lauren Phillips, join the scheme.
Both Jen and Lauren are coaches in our women’s U17s set up, with roles as goalkeeping coach and assistant coach respectively.
This a fantastic opportunity for Jen and Lauren. It offers them a truly valuable way of enhancing their development and to connect and learn from a new network of similarly brilliant coaches from other sports.
Neither of them are strangers to seeking out their next big development challenge. Earlier this year, Jen - who’s also the Liverpool FC first-team goalkeeping coach - took part in our first-ever Women’s Club Coach Development visit at the Women’s World Cup in France.
Jen has also contributed some brilliant coaching content for The Boot Room about blocking, spreading and foot saves. Watch part one of her session below and then head over to see the full session here.
While Lauren, who moved to the England set-up from her role as Arsenal U21s head coach in July, was one of the first coaches accepted onto The FA's National Specialist Coach Development Programme.
They’ll join 13 other top women’s coaches from across a variety of sports to develop skills, behaviours and knowledge that can help them thrive and flourish within high-performance environments.
Audrey Cooper, The FA’s head of women’s and girls’ game development was delighted with the news:
“We’re absolutely thrilled Jen and Lauren have been accepted onto the programme.
“It’s a fantastic opportunity and it offers them a truly valuable way of enhancing their development and to connect and learn from a new network of similarly brilliant coaches from other sports.
“It’s also another great example of elite support recognising the appetite among up and coming women’s coaches for these kinds of opportunities, and UK Coaching have created something that will benefit a lot of aspiring female coaching talent.”
Jen and Lauren will start the programme later this year and are promised a series of learning events focused on peer coaching, networking, learning from other sports, and opportunities to gain first-hand experience of high-performance coaching.
UK Coaching’s Development Lead Officer for Talent and Performance Chris Chapman, said:
“We are really pleased to welcome a new cohort of coaches on the programme. The quality of applications from governing bodies of sport has risen once and...we look forward to working with this talented group of coaches as they transition into high-performance coaching.”
If you’d like to read more about the programme, visit UK Coaching’s site here.
