Reimagining Youth Sport as a Brain-Based Environment for Mental Health
Overview
Youth mental health challenges are rising globally, yet one of the most accessible youth-serving systems — sport — remains underutilized as a public health strategy. This Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR) Seminar explores how insights from developmental neuroscience, trauma research, and sport-based youth development can transform everyday sport experiences into environments that promote regulation, connection, and resilience. Drawing on the Neurosequential Model and the Nothing Heals Like Sport playbook, this presentation will examine how relationships, movement, and manageable stress interact to support healthy brain development and emotional regulation in young people. Participants will explore how sport environments can shift stress from overwhelming to tolerable, enabling learning, skill development, and social connection. This presentation will also highlight practical coaching strategies that translate brain science into accessible practices such as predictable routines, relational safety, and developmentally appropriate challenges. Together, these approaches position youth sport as a powerful upstream intervention for mental health and community wellbeing.
Learning objectives
- Explain how stress and adversity influence youth brain development and behavior using principles from developmental neuroscience and the Neurosequential Model
- Analyze how sport environments can function as contexts for regulation, connection, and resilience through relationships, movement, and manageable stress
- Identify coaching practices that support psychological safety, autonomy, belonging, and competence in youth sport settings
- Apply brain-based coaching strategies to design sport experiences that promote youth mental health and positive development