Sports Spaces for Mental Health

Plan International Vietnam’s Sport Spaces Model (SSM) utilizes team sports to engage parents in reducing violence and conflict, strengthening family functioning, and improving youth mental health among ethnic minority youth aged 11-15 years and their parents in two northern mountainous provinces, Lai Chau and Tuyen Quang.

Unlike standard sports-based interventions that focus solely on youth, SSM engages youth and their parents, first as separate groups in Sport Club sessions, then together, through school and community sports events, to practice the skills they have learned in mental health literacy, positive discipline, and parenting, and to strengthen parent-child relationships. The initiative is co-led by students, teachers, and the Youth Union, with strategic support from the Departments of Education and Training in each participating province, aiming for long-term sustainability and integration into national school health programs.

First piloted in Hanoi from 2018 to 2022, SSM has reached over 30,000 students aged 11-15 years and parents, and over 1200 teachers, school staff, and leaders. With Transition-to-Scale funding, Plan International Vietnam will expand SSM in schools and parenting clubs across six communes in two provinces.