Strong Mind for Success

Implementing SMS in Sport holidays and preparation camps in Slovenia.

As planned at TMP in Slovenia, the dissemination period of activities of the project SMS is planned for between May and November. In Ajdovscina several activities are implemented by Sport Club Endorfin in cooperation with key stakeholders in the local community.

Implementation is divided in two phases. The first one includes dissemination and promotion of the content in sports holidays for children. Activities take place in six weeks between 1-st July and 9 th of August where every week the content of the project is implemented in football summer camps and also other sports activities. In total 500 children were involved in workshops. Together with their coaches and tutors they were part of a non-formal education process of importance of mental health in sport.

Implementation phases are also planned for the clubs who visit Sports centre Ajdovščina for the purposes of preparation camps. The final product of the project is a manual is an important approach for promoting the key contents of the project related to mental health.

“Strong Mind for Success” is an Erasmus+ co-funded initiative aiming to build capacity in sport organizations nowadays in the field of mental care awareness and care towards youth athletes. Strong Mind for Success project delivers an innovative education on how mental health can contribute for the successful development of young football players in Bulgaria, Italy and Slovenia.

This project uses the knowledge gathered from the results of the objectives and policies from the European Action Plans on Mental Health and focuses on educating young football players on mental health awareness. The target group are youth players (13 – 17), male and female as this age parameter is crucial for the psychological development of the athletes. The relevance and need of such project are supported by the scarcity of data not on what is the effect of sport on mental health, but rather the opposite. During the project will be analysed as well the aspects on how can we use mental health in order to prepare the players mentally and produce quality performance on the field and hopefully on the professional level. With the present project, the consortium aims to further develop the skills of managers as well on how to approach the mental aspects of their players, hopefully acquire the services of more mental health experts and introduce a more holistic approach to football preparation.

MAIN PROJECT OUTPUTS:
• Online platform on the importance of addressing mental health in the sport;
• Practical phase of development of new project ideas through the project lifetime;
• Implementing quality educational and research activities focused on the development of mental health amongst youth football players.

Partnership: 3 different EU countries – experienced organizations in the field of sport with know-how of project management that they can transfer in the project lifetime – Bulgarian sports development association (coordinator) L’ORMA from Italy and sport club Endorfin from Slovenia.