Kansas City needs more bridges between funders and boots-on-the-ground community leaders to directly build relationships that can serve neighborhoods’ needs. Smaller nonprofits would benefit from collaborating to form their own voice.

Children with disabilities often face more barriers to access sports. These challenges exist due to lack of awareness from those without disabilities to include them, lack of opportunities for training and competition, lack of accessible facilities, limited resources and perceptions about the interests and abilities of youth with disabilities to play sports.  Greater promotion in schools of integrated sports — meaning pairing children with and without physical or intellectual disabilities on the same team — can help increase access to sports for children with disabilities.

A child’s experience in sports is often only as good as the coach. And too few coaches are trained in key areas. For instance, less than 60% of surveyed coaches have ever taken trainings in trauma-informed practices, performance anxiety, emotional regulation and how to work with parents, according to the National Coach Survey as administered by the Aspen Institute, Ohio State, Nike and partners in 2022.