Empowering Minds: Enhancing children's mental fitness

ongoing

MINDFIT aims to enhance mental well-being and resilience among children and in particular young athletes, addressing a crucial need for mental health support within sports and educational contexts, focusing on the priority area of ‘Children’s Mental Health’ (priority 1). The project involves partners from 3 countries (Cyprus, Greece, and Italy) which have been chosen as they both require significant improvements in enhancing mental health provisions within their athletic and educational sectors, particularly for children and young athletes, and the development of national sports strategies for mental health. The consortium partners will develop, test, and disseminate engaging, age-appropriate educational content and tools focusing on building mental resilience, emotional intelligence, and coping strategies for young athletes, as well as supporting training materials for their families, educators, coaches, and caregivers. Also, an age-appropriate mobile application for children will be developed, that will give easy access to the project’s materials and supporting mechanisms. Training activities with the target groups will be implemented in the 3 partner countries and their effectiveness in improving participants’ mental fitness will be evaluated. Best practices and policy recommendations will be provided, along with the implementation of capacity building activities for local public authorities and the development of local actions plans, based on MINDFIT’s main outcomes. The dissemination efforts aim to reach local, international, and EU audiences, ensuring that the project’s findings contribute to the broader conversation on mental health and can inform similar initiatives in the future. The partnership includes one Research Center of Excellence (CYENS CoE), one University (UTH), two SMEs (GDA Sports, INQUIRIUM), two NGOs (Symplexis, CESIE) and one coventrate authority (Regional Government of Thessaly) from 3 EU countries (Cyprus, Greece, and Italy).