The project “Sports towards me(N)tal Health” aims to promote sports as a means of recognizing, countering and preventing mental health issues among young people, with a particular focus on those with fewer opportunities due to disadvantaged socio-economic conditions. After a quantitative research, the development of the training curriculum “Winning Back Their Mental Health Through Sports” and a set of pilot activities in Greece and Serbia to test the results in practice, the consortium partners — MoveIt and AEET(Greece), CEPORA and PSD Stavilo (Serbia) and Connect (Belgium) — developed a set of evidence-based policy recommendations. These recommendations aim to improve the way sports environments support young people’s mental health. They focus on promoting access to high-quality educational materials for coaches and trainers encouraging the creation of communities of practice between sports and mental health professionals, developing a monitoring and evaluation framework for mental health initiatives in sports clubs and strengthening collaboration through local partnerships with schools, youth services, and municipalities. These recommendations target a wide audience, including coaches, trainers, youth workers, sports staff and organizations working with young athletes, with the shared goal of making sports a safer and more supportive space for young people’s mental well-being.
