Moving Together: Psychosocial well-being through sport and physical activity

This publication intends to enable practitioners and experts in sociology, psychology, social work, and sport and physical education to provide sport and play based psychosocial support programmes to people in crisis situations.

The included carefully-planned sport activities create a safe and friendly setting for expressing and addressing problems and fears, while helping participants gain confidence, resilience, coping skills and hope. At the core of the handbook is a holistic, all-inclusive approach with attention to socio-cultural relevance, so the activities are appropriate for use in many different cultural and geographical contexts.

The first part of the handbook explains the theoretical framework for sport and physical activities in psychosocial support interventions. The second part presents 28 activity cards that explain how to facilitate activities, how they can be adapted to different circumstances, and how they can be used as a basis for discussion and reflection. The third part explains how to facilitate psychosocial interventions with sport and physical activities and how to set up interventions and programmes from the initial assessment to the exit strategy.

The publication has been developed with funding from the European Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme.