Dundee United Community Trust were one of the recipients of a £500 award from The SFP Trust’s 2019 Club Development Grant scheme. The initiative, funded by the SFP Trust in partnership with The Kilpatrick Fraser Charitable Trust, was developed to assist grassroots clubs in three specific areas – to increase participation by adding a new team to a club’s existing membership; to improve, enhance and sustain existing team activity through the purchase of new training equipment and/or funding First Aid training for coaches or thirdly to support Coach Education.
This fantastic community club opted to use the grant to support their growing mental health team which participates in the National Mental Health and Wellbeing League. In late 2018, the club started to work closely with NHS Tayside to provide support to a group of regular football drop-in participants with a view to providing additionality to their treatment programme and to support and promote recovery through sports participation. Connor Moyes, who leads on the programme, thanked the SFP Trust and KFCT for the funding and commented “The Mental health football programme offers our participants, who are all either receiving treatment or have received treatment for mental health issues, the opportunity to take part in regular football sessions alongside other people who are in the same position as themselves. The group themselves are very supportive of one another and are always very welcoming to new members. The social impact of the programme has helped us grow our numbers and also offers an additional level of support for those who come along to each session. The growth of our Mental health football sessions has benefited from the opportunity to take a team to national tournaments every month. These tournaments have really helped focus the group and give them something to work towards. Participants have been attending more regularly and in greater numbers since we started our involvement in the tournaments which has allowed them to benefit more from the regular participation in our sessions.”
Chris, one of the team participants said “I really like having the chance to play football, it helps us get out the house and keep busy. We have built up our own group at the football and I think that has really helped us as they are all supportive and everyone understands we are there for the same reason. We also all look forward to taking part in the SFA league every month as it gives us something to work towards and helps take our mind off things, and it’s good to get the chance to play against and meet other players who are in the same situation.”
