| Sports play a significant role in the lives of many youth. Participation on a sports team helps to shape a child's identity, leads to feelings of acceptance and belongingness, helps youth develop social relationships with others, and also helps children develop character traits and values. Additionally, through sports, children learn important life lessons, such as those of teamwork, fairness, equality, and commitment lessons that will benefit them throughout their lives. Internationally, mental health organizations have integrated sports and mental health, by using sports to target current sociocultural issues, such as gender equality, poverty, homelessness, and health issues (e.g., HIV/AIDS), while helping displaced persons following emergencies and other natural disasters. Although many mental health professionals in the United States are aware of the many benefits of sports participation, they do not utilize sports in addressing mental health needs to the same extent as their international counterparts. In addition, unlike sports programs that target socio-economic and broader cultural issues, sports programs in the United States have narrower overall goals and focus on the improvement of specific diagnoses and symptoms. To understand why the United States has not implemented sports programming into the mental health setting on a broader scale, this study conducted a series of 12 interviews with mental health professionals who work in alternative schools, treatment programs, and residential facilities across the state of Illinois. Six of the participants worked in settings that currently have organized sports programs, while six of the participants worked in mental health facilities that do not currently have sports programs. The crisis in funding throughout Illinois and the barriers that prevent mental health facilities statewide from implementing organized sports programs are discussed. This dissertation will show that sports programs benefit mental health programs and will explore why such programs are not implemented more often in the United States. |
