Charity puts sport at the heart of good mental health

A social inclusion charity has put sport at the heart of supporting young people’s mental health.

London-based Sport at the Heart is leading the way when it comes to promoting physical literacy and helping people become active.

Nary Wijeratne, founder and chief executive officer of the social inclusion charity, said: “Physical literacy is the building block to all physical movement and a key factor if a young person has a good relationship with sport, physical activity and movement throughout their life.”

SatH has been part of UK Youth’s Thriving Minds fund, which supports projects which improve mental health support and provision for young people.

Nary said: “The optimum time to develop physical literacy, as with most skills, is between the ages of zero and seven, so those early years are important. However, first experiences of movement and physical activity can be had at any age.

“What we need to do is shift away from the traditional sports and physical activity set-up and look at creative ways of developing opportunities for physical literacy development in youth club and community settings.”

That is where SatH excels, developing different ways to get people moving, particularly in an area lacking such opportunities.

Nary said: “Like with most things in our society, access to developing physical literacy is often dependent on equality of opportunities overall for that person.

“We work in areas and neighbourhoods where there is least access to opportunities. We’re less worried about getting young people to the Olympics than we are about keeping them safe and boosting their confidence, about helping them make friends and find community.”

“We think outside of the box and are creative in the way we present sports, because ‘non-sporty’ young people, if you present them with sports, they’re not interested, but if you’re creative in the way you incorporate physical literacy, you’ve got a chance.

“We’ve done a Pokémon GO club and which was amazing – I think they racked up about 25,000 steps looking for Pokémon with their phones around the neighbourhood.

“We’ve done gardening and planting, which is physical as well – lots of bending down and lifting and motor skills development.

“We have a PS5 and we’ve just bought a virtual reality headset. The VR has lots of active games and that seems to be quite a hit.

“If our young people don’t have good levels of physical literacy, they’re not going to be able to move in a way that is going to benefit their mental health. There’s been lots of research to say regular movement encourages serotonin and endorphin production, but it also decreases and buffers your body from cortisol, the stress hormone.”

To find out more, visit ukyouth.org