Take 5: Strengthening Youth Wellbeing Through After-School Sport

A pilot study conducted in partnership with the Western Cape Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport (DCAS), assessing the impact of training and supervising sports coaches to deliver resilience-building support through after-school sport programmes.

Children growing up in adversity need more than access to treatment when mental health challenges arise, they need support that helps prevent those challenges from developing in the first place.

This pilot study, conducted in partnership with the Western Cape Department of Cultural Affairs and Sport (DCAS), explored what happens when adults working with young people are equipped with skills to form caring attachments and create fun, safe spaces where children find relief from stress and learn to manage it.

The Waves for Change Take 5 team trained 83 school sport coaches employed by DCAS to use the Take 5 model across after-school sport programmes. The preliminary results are encouraging, with improvements in coaches’ helping skills, adolescent emotional regulation, wellbeing, resilience and coping, as well as increased attendance and positive behavioural outcomes.

The findings suggest that Take 5 offers a feasible and acceptable solution to optimise sport and play programmes for mental health and social behaviour outcomes at scale.

To explore the findings and their implications for governments, humanitarians, and development organisations working to improve outcomes for young people,