Part of the SNAP-Ed Strategies & Interventions Toolkit.*
Soccer for Success (SfS) is a direct education intervention designed to improve fitness levels of participants, improve nutritional knowledge and behavior of participants (and their families), and improve youth development outcomes of participants. SfS helps kids establish healthy habits and develop critical life skills through trained coach-mentors. Our multifaceted model combines structured physical activity, nutritional education, family engagement resources, and coach-mentoring best practices. The nutrition component meets USDA standards. SfS lessons are taught 3 times a week for 12 or 24 weeks by trained coach-mentors. SfS’ curriculum provides coach-mentors with tools to integrate nutrition lessons into fun activities. As a result, children are constantly engaged and challenged to incrementally increase both their level of physical activity and their understanding of healthy lifestyles. To further address the social determinants of health, we use SfS as a hub for wrap-around health services. The SfS model incorporates community engagement days, featuring health resources from local community-based organization partners.
Intervention materials are available on the U.S. Soccer Foundation’s Resource Hub. To access and explore the Resource Hub, contact emunir@ussoccerfoundation.org. Evaluation materials include:
- Data Collection Overview
- Post Surveys for Youth
- Surveys for Coach-Mentors
- Surveys for Parents
Promising Practices from Experienced Coach-Mentors
To order materials, potential partners should contact the U.S. Soccer Foundation (email: party@ussoccerfoundation.org), who will identify the potential partnership pathway that will be best for the setting and from there help identify funding opportunities to access program materials.
Cost varies by organization type and the number of youths that will be engaged. Organizations that wish to implement SfS can contact the U.S. Soccer Foundation (Foundation), where we will identify what type of resources will be required to implement the program. We can work with potential partners to ensure that the SfS Curriculum is attainable and removes barriers to access.
*SNAP-Ed Strategies & Interventions: An Obesity Prevention Toolkit for States is a compilation of interventions. The toolkit was developed by USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, The Association of SNAP-Ed Nutrition Education Administrators (ASNNA), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Center for Training and Research Translation (Center TRT), and the National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR), a partnership between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Institutes for Health (NIH), the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the USDA. It is designed and updated to help state SNAP-Ed administrative and implementing agencies identify evidence-based obesity prevention programs and policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) strategies and interventions to include in their SNAP-Ed plans.