The effect of engaging fathers and daughters on girls' participation in basketball: A preliminary evaluation of the 'Daughters and Dads basketball' program

Fathers will attend one 90 minute Dads-only education session covering all key content which includes program rationale, the unique influence of fathers, engaging daughters in basketball and pinkification. For Dads-only, the education session focuses on proven parenting key topic areas to improve their daughters’ skill proficiency in basketball, basketball enjoyment and participation and social-emotional wellbeing.This will be delivered by trained facilitator using powerpoint which includes interactive activities, short videos, gifs, imagery and text. One week later, Fathers and daughters will attend 8 x 90 minute weekly face-face sessions, with the total duration being 9 weeks. * Each of the 8 weekly daughters and dads session will be broken up into 2 components: (i) a 30-minute education session with fathers and daughters together (ii) a 60-minute practical session where fathers and daughters participate together, The daughters and dads’ education sessions focus on understanding the game of basketball, and developing girls’ basketball skills and key social and emotional skills including resilience, persistence, positivity and bravery. Content will be sport specific e.g., ‘Learning the Game of basketball – Part 1’, ‘Female Basketball Superstars'. The practical sessions focus on 3 key areas - rough and tumble play and handles, basketball skill development, and modified basketball games * The sessions will be group-based (~12 father/daughter dyads per program), delivered by university-trained facilitators (qualified teachers) at local schools *All fathers and daughters will be provided with program resources including a t-shirt, and a Home activity handbook containing tasks for fathers and daughters to complete together at home (e.g., ‘Activators’ and ‘Skills Practice’). Participants will be advised to complete activities at least one ‘Activator’ and one ‘Skills Practice’ activity per week equating to a minimum approximate time investment of approximately 10 minutes per week. The program resources/activity handbook is designed specifically for this study. Adherence to the intervention will be monitored by: - Attendance records at the sessions - Activities completed in the Handbook For those fathers who sign up for the program in our local area (e.g., Newcastle, Maitland and Central Coast), their daughters will be invited to complete additional pre- and post-program measures, including basketball proficiency skills tests and a face-to-face interview administered questionnaire. We will recruit 30 daughters who have enrolled and consented to participate in this component of the study.