Welsh official Jenkins chairs the CGF Development Committee, and has been a driving force behind the Gather Adjust Prepare Sustain (GAPS) programme which seeks to support the development of emerging Para athletes and coaches.

He stressed the significance of Para athletics' inclusion in the Trinbago 2023 programme with men's and women's competition in the T38 100 metres, T38 long jump and F42-44/F61-64 discus throw, but drew attention to work that had gone into making this possible.

"We campaigned really hard that Para events should be in the Youth Games but just having the event isn’t enough," he told insidethegames.

"You've got to help these athletes get here because for any Para athlete getting to any type of elite competition is very difficult.

"It is challenging at home because people with disabilities are often not given the same level of opportunities and support.

"We have a programme called GAPS which has been very successful in closing the gap between the vast majority of Commonwealth Games Associations (CGAs) and the top seven who typically dominate the main Games.

"Here in the Youth Games, we have athletics for the first time, we are delighted to have the events.

"We held a global GAPS camp in Stellenbosch University, our partner for GAPS Africa, where athletes receive coaching inputs including sport science and a range of support, then a few weeks later they came to Trinbago."

Jenkins added that the camp in South Africa had helped to "really successfully" address the issue of classification, which can prove costly for athletes and countries to attend events abroad.

"We've been working really closely with International Federations, in this case, having athletics classification here, so at the GAPS camp we did screening to make sure someone was about the right classification and they weren't going to come here and be disappointed that they weren’t able to compete because they were not the correct classification," he said.

"Then they were classified in Trinidad and able to compete, so it is another big first.

"It is a logistical first, but part of what we do.

"It's the first time we’ve had a Para event at the Youth Games in athletics, first time we've had a GAPS camp for youth, and the first time we've had classification attached to a Games."

Jenkins believes Para sport has established itself on the Commonwealth Youth Games programme with its debut at Trinbago 2023, and hopes further additions can be made for future editions.

"Looking forward, we would like to do more Para events in other sports," he declared.

"The challenge for us at the CGF, the development and the sport teams, is to sit down with other International Federations and see which sports would fit for the next Youth Games, and consult with the CGAs to make sure we've got the pathway for athletes.

"The GAPS programme provides long-term support planning over 10 to 12 years, both for the main Games and now we can do that for the Youth Games, so I think for the whole of the Commonwealth sport movement, this was a massive step forward."

Reflecting on his experience at Trinbago 2023, Jenkins felt the twin island model of staging events on Trinidad and Tobago had worked well, and thinks it could provide a sign of things to come for future Commonwealth Youth Games.

"It is a good model I think because it is a concept of co-hosting in the way you have one overall event in two different places," he said.

"This has worked really well running at the same time, you could do one running after the other, you could do all sorts of options.

"I think it has proved you can do two events simultaneously on different islands.

"I was talking to some of the athletes who were in Tobago so they missed out on the Trinidad Opening Ceremony, and they showed me the video of them of them all dancing around in what is now the netball venue, so they had a bit of a party which we didn’t know about sitting in Trinidad.

"It is an interesting model with lots of learnings coming out of it.

"Clearly there are challenges, there always are when you are trying to link together transport, but I think it has worked really well and is a really interesting lesson because with the Games of the future at the CGF we've given the option of co-hosting.

"Here it is two islands within the same country, but effectively they are co-hosts, so I think it has worked well."

Jenkins pinpointed the performances of Trinidad and Tobago's Nikoli Blackman, who won three freestyle swimming gold medals, among his highlights from Trinbago 2023, as well as the inclusion of Para athletics, and said "the best thing is the athletes' faces and the smiles".

Trinbago 2023 is due to finish with a Closing Ceremony at Pigeon Point Heritage Park in Tobago.