USTA/Midwest Tennis & Education Foundation Community Impact SEL Report and Request

 The USTA/Midwest Tennis & Education Foundation (MTEF) has always believed that positive youth development (PYD) is done through a community approach with NJTLs, non-profits like our CTAs, and with the assistance of our volunteers.   Through our mission of bringing the joy of tennis and education to youth we enhance positive relationships, build leadership strengths, and provide opportunities for youth. We need to track youth in sports-based youth development programs and their experiences of growth associated in social and emotional learning (SEL) in these programs. More specifically, SEL, is the process through how youth understand and manage emotions, set and achieve goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. As the world changes, we understand how crucial it will be to integrate coaches, programming, and a delivery model that includes psychological, and emotional safety and not just physical.     There is not much data that is standardized and considered reliable.   We will be able to use this information not just internally but for our Board, donors, impact results, grant performance metrics potential sponsorships and partnerships in communities.  Learning about the satisfaction of the youth’s experience is important feedback on improving programs.   If they aren’t engaged with the programing and not participating, they are not getting anything out of it physically, socially, or emotionally (learning).  Sport speaks to youth in a language they understand.  At MTEF, we understand sport and teaching tennis to youth in a fun way. We also use education and mentoring in our community outreach. We need partners to help us extend further. We have 27 chapters of non profits and are only using SEL tracking in a few. This is the first year we have data on over 1,500 youth our goal is to track more. We need additional funding for the software and staffing to roll this out further. MTEF would love to share our impact Social and Emotional reporting with companies or donors interested in funding.