WHY?

Mental health problems and low emotional literacy skills play a key role in school exclusions, incarceration, percentage of hospital admittance, substance abuse, relationship breakdowns and family dysfunction. Costing the world greatly in health, happiness and sterling.

With 50% of adult mental illness starting before the age of 14 and on average, 10 years passes between the person getting unwell and when they receive help. Soccology wanted to provide a service that counters this problem.

Our service is to all ages but is youth focused. We identified the below headings as barriers, with our aims

Reactive: Soccology was set up because the support on offer was heavily reactive. With problems having to peak before people received help, if they received help.

Access: Clinical support is something that many cannot afford due to their socio-economic status. Soccology programmes focus on providing access to those who would otherwise be unable to afford clinical help.

Rapport: Rapport is one of the most important part of the therapeutic relationship, without it there is no therapy. Soccology uses the most loved game as the shared interest, increasing rapport. We also have a relaxed approach, that provides clinical work in a non-traditional way.

Comfort: It is common for people to find therapy uncomfortable. They are not used to intimacy, so the intimate therapeutic relationship can be too intense. Suppressing their feelings was their coping mechanism, the thought of allowing their feelings to surface can be terrifying.

Soccology allows people to learn from a distance, via scenarios used in the programme and their personal stories through the metaphor of football. 

The programme  helps people reconnect to themselves, repair emotional damage and acts as a warm up before the intensity of one to one therapy. Thus far over 23% of group attendees have made self-referrals for our one to one service.