Strong Mind for Success

Dissemination activities in Slovenia of the project Strong Mind for Success  continue in a way of short presentations of the content and delivering manuals as final output where the steps and importance of mental health is described. In cooperation with the Institute of sport Ajdovscina we implemented the content in several activities as preparation camps of the foreign sports clubs who visited the sports center in August and September.  

Promotional activities were spread also at Mini Olympic games organized by our local Sports Association and due to some organizational changes in football at the community level. This year with growing interest in women’s football a new organization was founded in Ajdovščina. As part of several activities Sport club Endorfin together with the newly founded organization, took part in promoting the contents of the project SMS. 

“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.