On the 3rd of Feb. 2023 in Pazardzhik, Bulgaria was held the IMPACT project ( 101089445 — IMPACT — ERASMUS-SPORT-2022-SCP) first transnational project meeting, hosted by the coordinator Tennis club Favorite. The project is co-funded by the European Union, Erasmus + programme and includes five organisations: Tennis club Favorite (Bulgaria), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), Margherita Sport e Vita (Italy), Tennis club Bernhausen e.V. (Germany) and Mak Tennis Pro (North Macedonia). During the meeting the partners discussed the timelines, work packages, communication and dissemination activities.
IMPACT overall objective is to promote education in and through sport, more specifically supporting skills development in sport and promoting the quality of coaching and staff at EU sports club level by elaborating, piloting, evaluating, and disseminating an Innovative Model for Parents, Athletes and Coaches in Tennis (IMPACT) to build on mental health (MH) awareness and understanding in grassroots clubs, parents, coaches, and tennis athletes 12-24 years aged living in EU cities(3) and 2 EU remote (backwards) communities.
The ambition of the project partners is to provide a whole innovative mental health ecological systems model for European tennis grassroots sports clubs including 1 suite of mental health resources for sports clubs, 1 blended learning educational program Supporting minds including 3 main modules for parents, coaches and athletes, 1 school training activity model and 5 inspiring community – based sports events applying totally innovative approach for best practices identification and collaborative learning – Virtual Community of Practice (VCoP). IMPACT is a model to raise and develop tennis sports people’s mental health awareness, literacy and skill set while strengthening the communities’ grassroots sports organisations’ role in prevention and protection of athletes against mental health issues.