Commitment to Children

HIGH FIVE® is a standard committed to enhancing healthy child development within sport and recreation. Organizations involved with HIGH FIVE are aware that there is an expectation and responsibility to uphold the Commitment to Children policy seen below.

If you're interested in sharing or implementing HIGH FIVE's goals with your recreation or sport organization feel free to print, share the link and speak to others. If you have any further questions about HIGH FIVE, please feel free to contact your local HIGH FIVE representative.

Environments for children must be:

  • Secure, safe, and stable;
  • Caring;
  • Stimulating;
  • Accessible;
  • Challenging;
  • Considerate of personal space needs and special needs;
  • Equipped with age, size, and ability-appropriate equipment, furniture, and materials; and 
  • Welcoming of diverse races, cultures and abilities.

Activities for children must:

  • Allow for a combination of self-directed and leader-directed activities;
  • Provide children with opportunities for input, involvement, and choice;
  • Reflect both assessed and expressed needs;
  • Provide opportunities for active participation and reflection;
  • Encourage co-operation and friendship;
  • Incorporate varied learning styles and developmental stages;
  • Recognize uniqueness and encourage mastery; and
  • Value and incorporate cultural, racial and linguistic delivery.

Leaders must:

  • Ensure all children are treated with respect, honesty, and trust;
  • Recognize and accept children's individual needs and circumstances;
  • Employ positive behaviour-management methods;
  • Help children value and celebrate diversity in the community;
  • Consistently model appropriate behaviour; and 
  • Continually evaluate the program and leadership to ensure improvement and reflect changing needs.

Organizations must:

  • Encourage and support the on-going development of staff and volunteers with regard to their knowledge and understanding of healthy child development;
  • Ensure clear and on-going communication with parents and families;
  • Encourage participation and input from children and families; and
  • Provide the organizational supports necessary to ensure that children feel safe, welcome, competent, connected, empowered and special.

HIGH FIVE® is committed to enhancing healthy child development within sport and recreation. Accredited and registered organizations uphold the Commitment to Children Policy.

Desired Outcomes for Children

When children participate in recreational play, they develop physically, emotionally, socially, and cognitively. What they learn at play provides a strong foundation that will help prepare them for future life experiences. All recreation and sport programs have a responsibility to provide activities and environments where children feel safe, welcome, competent, connected, empowered and special.

To that end, children's recreation and sport programs must strive for excellence by taking into consideration the following broad objectives:

  1. Enable children to develop as considerate, co-operative, and caring individuals who show concern and respect for themselves, for others, and for their communities
  2. Help children, when they are ready, to become competent in the areas that interest them most, by providing high-quality leadership, hands-on and self-directed learning, and a healthy view of competition
  3. Enable children to be expressive and creative by encouraging them to use their imagination, to explore, and to experiment
  4. Provide positive role models, as well as opportunities for children to be leaders and role models for others
  5. Provide child-centred individual and group activities that are fun and enjoyable
  6. Help children achieve success in order to build their self esteem and confidence, taking into account that they must be ready before they are challenged
  7. Provide children with the opportunity to develop relationships with non-parental adults and peers in a safe environment
  8. Help children learn and experience ideas and concepts such as responsibility, decision making, independence, problem solving, team building, and self management
  9. Help children learn how to use leisure time positively and develop a lifelong commitment to physical activity and healthy living
  10. Provide children with hands-on experience with nature so that they understand and appreciate the natural world
  11. Enrich children's lives and help them develop new interests and skills by exposing them to a wide variety of diverse and stimulating experiences and
  12. Enable children to feel a sense of emotional well being, belonging, and security.

If you'd like to share HIGH FIVE's goals with your recreation or sport organization, we've collected these 12 goals in a Desired Outcomes for Children PDF for you to download. Feel free to print, distribute and  speak to others. If you have any further questions about HIGH FIVE, please feel free to contact your local HIGH FIVE representative.