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The Headspace Sports Program.

Turning therapy into sports.

We worked with the National Children’s Mental Health Foundation and practitioners to turn mental health therapy into fun sports experiences for children aged 12 through 22.

We designed the program for kids already working with therapists who would benefit from learning strategies to cope with challenging situations and feelings of pressure, failure, compassion and worry.

Sally Corry, Headspace manager for the National Children’s Mental Health Foundation, said it best when she described our program as an outlet for young people struggling with their mental health. She believes our program provides a supportive and safe environment for kids to learn new skills to improve their mental and physical health. She said, “We had very positive feedback from both attendants and their families, and good engagement with the schools and University [of New South Wales].”

What practitioners and families say about our sports therapy programs.

“Improving mental health through sport is an untapped reservoir of resources. Top sports people spend countless hours with psychologists. The tools applied have to be second to none, as the situation is of the highest level of pressure. What if we took the therapeutic training that athletes receive and applied it to youths in their everyday lives? That is exactly what this program does.

The program is highly successful for two reasons:

When talking about mental health, youths are often shut off from the idea of exploring their feelings. But when talking about pressure in your favourite sport, the boundaries are broken down.
Sport becomes a way for young people to understand life’s pressures and how to deal with them.”

Christopher Agostino, Headspace physiologist for the National Children’s Mental Health Foundation.

“The group was fantastic. I find it very hard to motivate Laura. She came home so happy and told me [that] the best part [of the program] was for the first time— when doing therapy— she did not feel like a problem because it was done in a fun way, not in a room. She was really pumped and looking forward to going again.”

Jo, Headspace customer.