The Crewe Mental Health Soccer Academy

Football is used as an intervention to promote peak positive mental and physical health. The academy model helps to provide a focus, giving insight, helping to combat the side effects of medication, increasing skills, promoting teamwork and social inclusion, boosting self-esteem, enabling aspirational roles and increasing occupational function and performance

Co-Production

  • From start: No
  • During process: Yes
  • In evaluation: No

Evaluation

  • Peer: Yes
  • Academic: No
  • PP Collaborative: Yes

Find out more

What We Did

Football is used as an intervention to promote peak positive mental and physical health. The academy model helps to provide a focus, giving insight, helping to combat the side effects of medication, increasing skills, promoting teamwork and social inclusion, boosting self-esteem, enabling aspirational roles and increasing occupational function and performance

 

Wider Active Support

We have active collaboration and support with Crewe Alexandra FC. Who offer coaching, training facilities, strip sponsoring and professional advice? We have on going promotion via Adult mental health services and the Recovery College. We are about to commence a pilot with the Healthy Eating and Responsible Thinking (HEART) project team Our main referral and recruitment sources are from Adult Mental health services. Early Intervention and Reablement Services

 

Co-Production

The involvement of our service users is central to our project and self-explanatory. We acknowledge that, their feedback is essential to improve our project. We Encourage staff to become involved in training sessions as this helps to build professional relationships and develop trust from our team members. Also taking part helps those staff further to promote to other prospective academy members.

 

Looking Back/ Challenges Faced

The project had already been established prior to my own intervention. If I were to commence a new project I would begin with my latter Academy model and business plan. I would also set outcome measures at commencement, to measure progress, improve services, and underpin any future bids for funding.

Relocation of the early intervention team who were a main source of referral was a serious challenge. This has partly been overcome both by increased promotion and discussion of support for those services locally and with Occupational therapists in referring areas.
Loss of original funding agent. Overcome by bids made to charitable funding source.

Fluctuating attendance-overcome by collaboration with supporting services and care coordinators also working with service users towards independent use of public transport.

Sustainability

Therapeutic work undertaken regarding independent attendance.
Arrange bus passes where applicable
Anxiety management and assertiveness training
Use of Recovery College as an alternative source of leadership

 

Evaluation

Acute and critical admissions have been reviewed both prior, during and after intervention annually over a 3 year period wherever applicable.
Informal results of this were 85% prior, 2% during and 30% re-critical intervention where team members have stopped attending. This would support the hypothesis that the intervention may make a difference even with a stopped attendance.
We have plans to upscale monitoring with assistive research. Also formal outcomes will be available from the HEART project.

 

Sharing 

We are currently reviewing expansion of project using either our current sponsors or with local clubs in outlying Cheshire East area. We intend to use the same business model and particularly our network of Occupational therapists in those areas. We are also seeking appropriate hubs for mental health leagues and tournaments,

 

 

 

 

 

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