Supporting the Minds Behind the Sport: YouMind Releases Mental Health Resources for Young Athletes

YouMind is a small-scale partnership project that focuses on raising awareness about mental health in sport and creating strategies to prevent mental health challenges among youth athletes.

The project’s key objectives are to:

• Raise awareness about the importance of mental health in sport and the negative effects of mental disorders on performance and everyday life.
• Provide a safe space for young athletes to share their stories and connect with others.
• Boost self-esteem, confidence, and empowerment through open dialogue and supportive initiatives.
• Encourage empathy and proactive engagement from coaches in addressing mental wellbeing.

To further these aims, the YouMind partners have produced two key resources:

• Guidelines on Mental Health in Youth Sports – a practical tool offering insights, strategies, and recommendations for organisations, clubs, and coaches who work with young athletes.
  
  
• Project Video on Mental Health in Sport – a visual introduction to the topic, designed to engage young people and spark conversations around emotional wellbeing and resilience in sport.

These materials serve as a starting point for understanding and addressing mental health in the sports context, offering actionable tips and evidence-based advice for creating supportive sporting environments.

The resources are available free of charge on the project website, both as a downloadable guide and an online video, in English as well as the languages of the project partners: Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, and Slovenian.