The Flourishing Footballers programme: Using psycho-education to develop resilience through ACT

This paper details the Flourishing Footballers programme, a practical innovation which was designed to enhance resilience by explicitly integrating ACT into a male Academy football context (Youth Development Phase). The intervention was carried out by implementing a season-long psycho-education programme, which is the culmination of ten years work. Core components of the programme are presented and evaluated. The programme was deemed to be successful based on player engagement with the programme, and utilisation of the taught ACT-based skills. Thus, support is offered for ACT as an efficacious method of intervention within an elite sport context. Consideration is given to the practical implications of this novel programme.

To find the full text version of this article and others (as well as download a full text .pdf.), ACBS members can visit the ScienceDirect homepage here.