“During the third year of the Sport4Equality project twe are implementing an important improvement: the increase of psychological support for participants, both adults and minors. This decision was guided by the valuable feedback collected from participants in previous years, which highlighted the growing need for more extensive and targeted psychological support“. Narrating the Sport4Equality project from the inside, is Samanta Pettinelli, programme coordinator at NOVE.
Currently, participants have the opportunity to access individual, customised psychological meetings geared as much to their specific needs as to those of their families. Professionals work closely with beneficiaries to provide empathic and targeted support addressing a wide range of issues related to emotional well-being, family relationships, stress management and resilience.
““The positive impact of this increased psychological support is evident in the improved emotional well-being and relationships within the families involved. Participants are having the opportunity to explore and face their psychological challenges in a safe and non-judgmental environment, promoting greater emotional awareness and better management of daily difficulties”, evaluates Samanta Pettinelli.
A positive assessment confirmed by psychologist Margherita Gabos, responsible for managing and conducting the parenting support and psychological counselling for parents: “I believe that the strength of the #Sport4equality project also lies in the possibility of offering personalised support, tailored to the needs of the individual nucleus. I imagine the project as a set of concentric circles with the family nucleus at the centre: in our first circle there is sport, followed by training for parents and children on cyberbullying, educational monitoring, then parent meetings and individual psychological support for parents and children“.
Joining the sports project is the first step, the common ground and language that binds all the beneficiaries. From here, each person over time has the opportunity to access other services, according to the needs that emerge and the relationship of trust built, on their own initiative and without obligation. These actions, where necessary, make taking charge more and more effective, respecting personal time and the search for more targeted support, integrating material needs with psychological ones as we move from the centre to the periphery of the project’s reach.
The most frequently encountered problems leading to requests for psychological counselling concern bullying and discrimination, family pressures and expectations, social integration, dual identity management and learning problems..
Parents often notice a change in their children’s behaviour and habits, observe signs – silence, isolation, nervousness, dropping out of school problems in eating behaviour, changes in mood, lack of interest in everyday activities – that set off alarm bells. They are the first to intercept these signals, but they do not always understand how to decode them.
The case reported by Margherita is emblematic, that of a mother of North African origin who sought help, first from the group and then in individual consultations, to understand what was happening to her daughter. In fact, she had noticed a change in her daughter’s transition from middle school to high school: the girl had started to withdraw and have bad school marks and she thought that her health condition – her daughter suffers from a chronic illness – had something to do with her malaise and school problems. However, it was not easy for her to understand how to help. By activating one support for the mother and one for the daughter, it was possible to understand what their respective needs were and also what to change in the relationship between them, in order to foster the minor’s process of individuation and autonomy.
Within the beneficiaries of Sport4Equality project there is a macro division between migrant or second-generation subjects and subjects with physical and sensory disabilities. “The differences between these two groups in terms of needs are manifold, but once they reach the adolescent phase, the psychological movements of identification and separation from the nucleus of origin can be even more complex, especially if there is a problematic socialisation with the peer group, hindered by bullying and discrimination phenomena,” analyses the psychologist.
Psychological support has proven to be effective and timely, especially in preventing dropping out of schoolschool drop-outs, strengthening the children’s resources, supporting their sense of agency and helping them to imagine different strategies to deal with their experiences without taking refuge in themselves and renouncing the outside world. Psychological support serves to get minors out of their impasse and make them feel supported, and is all the more effective if the children know that there is a figure who is also an expert in guiding their parents, providing answers to their questions and concerns. This increasingly integrated caretaking is experienced as deeply liberating by both parents and children. It is interesting to note that the first positive impact on the children takes the form of an alliance with parents already on a support pathway.
Testimonies and results show that psychological support is indeed central for the beneficiaries of Sport4Equality project. “In these three years, the project has had the merit of bringing attention to certain social inequalities, not only in sporting activity but also in access to other psycho-socio-educational support services to which, especially families with a migratory past and second-generation children, should have easier access,” concludes Margherita Gabos.
The project Sport4Equality project, which started in Rome in 2021 and is now in its third year, is carried out together with the operating partners Sport Senza Frontiere Onlus, Federazione Italiana Sport Paralimpici e Sperimentali (FISPES), Associazione di Promozione Sociale il Ponte.