Project details
Coping Through Football – Leyton Orient Trust
Coping Through Football is a transformational programme that demonstrates how two sporting charities – Leyton Orient Trust and the London Playing Fields Foundation can work with the NHS to produce a sustainable recovery model approach to engage with and improve the wellbeing of adults and young people experiencing mental health issues.
The project shows how sport can:
• help tackle stigma and discrimination
• can work together with the health sector on shared agendas to reduce inequalities
• be a tool for engagement with hard to reach groups
• assist in the recovery of those with mental ill health
The aim:
The aim of Leyton Orient Trust ‘s programme is to use the football experience to get fitter, increase levels of self-esteem and confidence, make new friends and ultimately to help people get their lives back on track. We do not see ourselves as a football project but a social inclusion project that uses football as a tool to engage people who have experienced mental health problems. Most of our players have experienced social exclusion, unemployment, poor physical and mental health and lack a social network or support and Coping Through Football sets out to address these issues.
The programme has been extremely successful in helping players to turn their lives around and to live more independently. It has been recognised by the Department of Health as a model of best practice in the recovery of people with long term mental health problems and our goal is to increase the number of people who benefit.
Health Hub – Leyton Orient Trust
Football Fans in Training – Leyton Orient Trust
