Participation in sport and recreation can have many benefits that all of us enjoy. It can:
- Reduce health issues
- Improve sleep
- Help our brains work better when we’re awake
- Build healthy habits and routines
- Support resilience and emotional regulation
- Foster social connection and provide positive role models
- Help nurture a sense of belonging
When it comes to healing and recovering from trauma, sport and recreation can be extremely therapeutic.
As a coach or volunteer, you’re not expected to “fix” or heal anyone’s trauma, but you can play a powerful role.
With your help, sport and recreation can become a gateway for children to countless positive new experiences and opportunities to develop skills and connections.
“If we make coaches 5% more trauma-informed … we will have more therapeutic impact on children than if we trained an entire new cohort of trauma therapists.” – Dr. Bruce Perry, MD, PhD (Centre for Healing and Justice Through Sport).
What makes sport and recreation therapeutic?
It’s not so much the activities themselves, but the things sport and recreation expose us to, when coaches and leaders are able to set the right conditions.
There are three key ingredients to this:
- Relationships
- Movement
- Manageable stress
Fact sheet: Three key elements of sport
The healing and growing through sport section is now completed, if you want some communication tips and tricks refer to the Coaching Toolkit.
