Feeling better together: Development and evaluation of an intervention to improve well-being in para-athletes using the social identity approach

Social relationships are a central component of human life. Everyone participates in different social groups such as families, friends, the workplace, or school. It has already been proven in science that these social groups are decisive for our mental health and that different social identities can protect us from distress. The construct of the social group in the sense of teams is also found in sport. Unfortunately, despite the increasing media attention, the aspect of mental health is still neglected and not sufficiently addressed in this domain, which is especially true for the entire field of para-sports. Thus, the aim of this project is to take up this challenge and make a further step towards the well-being of athletes, specifically in para-athletes. Through an intervention based on the social identity approach, the well-being of sports teams should be sustainably increased. Within the approval period of 12 month the project encompasses the development of the social identity-based intervention, followed by the implementation of the intervention with para-sports teams of the National Paralympic Committee Germany and finally the evaluation of the program. The components of the intervention will be elicited from existing models of underlying mechanisms linking social identity to well-being. The relevance of the project is not only in the field of sport science, where it could pave the way towards the practical application of social identity theory. More so, sports teams reflect the dynamics of any social group, which implies that the contents of the intervention can also be applied to corporate health. Additionally, social identity and identification have been shown to have a positive impact on minority empowerment. Here, too, the content could be a starting point for more inclusion through para-sport programs.