TYASA (The Youth and Amateur Sports Association) is currently conducting a structured listening initiative focused on better understanding the day-to-day realities of volunteer-led youth sports organizations.
This phase is dedicated to learning, not implementing structural programs or governance changes.
Youth sports are powered by volunteers, community leaders, and families.
Across local environments, organizations often manage:
Administrative workload and coordination demands
Evolving safety expectations
Communication challenges
Rising costs and access pressures
Volunteer sustainability concerns
These realities are not uniform, and they are not assumed.
This initiative exists to better understand lived experiences directly from those involved.
This listening phase includes:
Structured surveys for organizational leaders, coaches, and parents/guardians
Optional follow-up interviews for participants who volunteer
Aggregated review of themes and common operational patterns
Participation is voluntary and based on opt-in engagement.
To ensure clarity:
This initiative is not:
An evaluation of any specific league or organization
A review of rule structures or competition formats
An incident investigation process
A mandate or required reporting structure
A restructuring effort
The purpose is to understand, not to replace or impose.
Participation is open to individuals currently involved in youth sports organizations, including:
Organizational leaders and board members
Volunteer coaches
Parents and guardians
If you are unsure whether this initiative applies to you, you may request clarification.
To protect survey integrity and ensure responses reflect current participation roles, surveys are distributed directly following a participation request.
Interested individuals may submit a request to receive the appropriate survey link.
Participation requests are reviewed for role confirmation purposes only.
Responses are reviewed in aggregate.
Individual responses are not publicly attributed.
The goal of this phase is to identify themes and patterns, not to single out organizations or individuals.