181208_Training-Module_interactive

3.1. INTRODUCTION AND
SELF-ASSESSMENT
The main aim of this chapter is to make clear some of the principles of psychosocial support, which is an
approach designed to promote the resilience of individuals, groups and communities in crisis. Specifically,
this section shows how the psychosocial approach can be adopted and adapted by coaches to help the
wellbeing and inclusion of refugees in sport.
This part of the manual will also explain why sport is an appropriate setting to provide such support. It
discusses the essential elements of psychosocial interventions and the many benefits of positive sporting
experiences. Most importantly, it provides practical guidance about how to organise and manage groups
and plan appropriate sporting activities, respecting the different backgrounds of such a very diverse group.
We also hope that this information will help to overcome coaches’ understandable anxieties about work with
traumatised people and to make psychosocial challenges a more normal topic for coaches to deal with.
To better understand what will be discussed in this section, consider the following questions:
• What psychological or social challenges might a refugee face?
• Have you ever worked or dealt before with people that have to live with psychological or social
challenges?
• If so, do you remember how you recognised it?
• Sport and physical activity programmes will not be able to heal any psychological trauma or illness. But
do you know how they could be used to support daily living under such conditions?
• Do you have an idea of what activities and behaviour could be appropriate or perhaps counterproductive?
3.2. KEY LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this section, you will:
• Better understand what traumatised, depressed or just despondent people are going through
• get an idea of some of the principles of psychosocial support and how they may be connected to
physical activity and sport
• acquire some knowledge of how to support the improvement of health and wellbeing of traumatised/
depressed people and, therefore, help to facilitate their inclusion into society and sport.
37 ASPIRE