From Clinic to Playing Field: Integrating Community Sport into Public Mental Health and Psychosocial Care

Physical literacy is defined as the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge, and understanding that enable lifelong physical activity, yet child and youth programs routinely treat it as a synonym for fundamental movement skills and report only motor-competence scores. That reduction breaks the construct and weakens the public-health claim now attached to it. Motivation, confidence, and perceived competence sit closer to anxiety, depression, self-esteem, and wellbeing than a hop-and-skip battery does, while youth mental-health need is high and service capacity is thin. This article reports a structured evidence and concept synthesis of physical-literacy frameworks, motor-skill intervention trials, reviews of physical activity and child or adolescent mental health, assessment tools such as CAPL and PLAY, and implementation studies of school and community programs. Motor-skill teaching can improve movement quality when instructional dose is adequate, and motor competence is associated with activity and perceived competence. Direct, consistent effects of motor-only programs on validated depression or anxiety scales are not robust; any mental-health path is typically indirect, running through perceived competence, peer status, autonomy, sleep, and accumulated activity. Physical activity itself is associated with better youth mood and wellbeing, with small average effects that depend on regularity and psychosocial climate. Autonomy-supportive, mastery-oriented settings are more plausible mental-health environments than public ranking and surprise testing. Few evaluations branded as physical literacy report the full domain set plus a validated mental-health or wellbeing measure, so the field has not yet tested the construct it advertises. The article proposes MOVE-MH as a delivery and evaluation standard: Multidimensional assessment, Open autonomy-supportive climate, Valid mental-health endpoints, Enough dose across a term, and Multi-informant follow-up. Motor competence remains necessary. It is not sufficient. Programs that wish to speak about literacy and mental health must measure both.

کلیدواژه ها:

Physical Literacy ، Motor Competence ، Children and Youth ، Mental Health ، Program Evaluation.