Kick-off of the project Erasmus+ Sport Dual Careers for Mental Health DC4MH

DC4MH seeks to optimize the mental health support services offered by European organizations to elite athletes developing a Dual Career.

The DC4MH project seeks to optimize the mental health support services offered by European organizations to elite athletes by developing a Dual Career, with the aim of facilitating a combination of high-performance sports and healthier education. More than 9,195 elite athletes will participate in the project.

The team includes 28 experts in Mental Health and Dual Career representing 10 organizations from 6 countries (Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Slovenia, Sweden and Spain) linked to sport (public bodies, high performance centers, elite sports clubs, universities, gyms, health institutes). The project is coordinated by the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).

The results of the project will allow to have a greater knowledge of the structures of these services, and to develop strategies to increase the knowledge and monitoring of mental health and the development of resilience of athletes who develop their sports career in parallel with their educational training.

This project represents one more step in the line of European projects being developed by the UAB Sports and Physical Activity Research Group (GEPE) aimed at empowering the development of Dual Careers and Mental Health. Currently, the team is working on the HeDuCa project "Promotion of Healthy Dual Careers in Sports", funded by the Ministry of Innovation and Science. The group has established a solid collaborative relationship with the High Performance Center in Sant Cugat for the development of projects in the area of managing the athletes’ dual career.

Providing athletes’ academic support and mentoring has been a UAB commitment. Since 1996 promotes Tutoresport-UAB program, the first program of these characteristics in Spain. More than 600 athletes have been supported by the program.