Introduction

Led by the International Sport and Culture Association, the multi-million-euro EU4Health funded Icehearts Europe is a trisectoral, multistakeholder, multi-country project which aims to improve mental health and well-being of disadvantaged children and youth in Europe through a pan-European initiative. Icehearts Europe is inspired by the Finnish Icehearts model, which has been designated as a model of best practice by the European Commission (2016, 2021).  For over 25 years, the Icehearts Finland has successfully targeted disadvantaged children and youth across Europe who suffer from poor mental health. This has been achieved through support and counselling facilitated by trained Icehearts’ mentors using sport/physical activity as a powerful medium in schools and communities.

The strategic objectives of Icehearts Europe are fourfold: to build a model and tools for European implementation of Icehearts; to build capacity in partner and stakeholder organisations to deploy Icehearts; to pilot and implement the developed Icehearts model in five European countries; and to enhance European awareness about Icehearts and engage more countries and organisations in deployment and scale-out.

Method In Icehearts Europe, there are five pilot implementation countries (DGI in Denmark, SPIN in Estonia, Fútbol Más Espana in Spain, UISP (Italian Sport for All Association) in Italy and SUS (Sport Union of Slovenia) in Slovenia). Informed by (a) a detailed Situational Analysis and Needs Analysis (SANA) of the five pilot countries and the organisations (2023) and (b) a study visit to Icehearts Finland (2023), the UCC team used a range of design thinking (Brown, 2008) pedagogies (including LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®) to co-design and prototype: (i) an online Icehearts mentor training programme (in 2024) (in five languages – Danish, English, Italian, Slovenian and Spanish) and (ii) an onboarding education and training tool for organisations (2024) in the same five languages. Online training course development employed the ADDIE model (Forest, 2014) to ensure a robust course design. The ADDIE model is an instructional systems design framework - (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation) The courses were further underpinned by connectivist (Siemens, 2005) and constructivist (Vygotsky) approaches to scaffold learning.

Results Using insights from the SANA, the five pilot country organisations iterated and helped to fine-tune both the Icehearts mentor education and training and, organisation onboarding through a series of site visits. There were a number of key design disruptors, which were tackled through the use of the universal design for learning model. Conclusions Mentor training and organisation onboarding must be bespoke to the organisation and to the context (local and national) in which it is enacted. A one-size fits all approach is not ideal. It will be important to take these insights into account when the project is scaled to the fourteen associate partners (Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania and The Netherlands). This EU4Health funded project shows how networks of strong researchers together for civil society can truly embrace new models of education in an Age of Uncertainty, providing hope and agency for citizens as the world wrestles with a maelstrom of pandemics (war, climate change, Covid19, economic turbulence).

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