In July our partner organisation Football Beyond Borders invited us to bring our Football on the Brain 'roadshow activities' to their summer residential programme. We brought a seven-person team of researchers and public engagement staff, and set up pitch-side during both the boys' and girls' tournaments. We enjoyed engaging with 100+ young people throughout the day! Our education lead Louise Aukland also delivered a classroom session nearby at the tournament for some of the players.
This was a great opportunity to try out our roadshow activities in an outdoor setting, having previously trialled them indoors during our partner staff visit day in May. Activities included aiming at goals while wearing vision-shifting goggles, completing fitness and memory tests and tracking the relationship between them, inflating balloons as an analogy for risk-taking decisions, card games, a quiz on sleep and football, a 'shockball' to prompt discussion on emotional regulation, and a 'higher or lower' game to guess the ages of brain scan images.
The event was also an opportunity to film for our (now released) Football on the Brain trailer video. This was skillfully shot and produced by Youth Beyond Borders, a production company affiliated with Football Beyond Borders. Their photographer/videographers were fantastic to work with and we were so delighted with the final result! You can see several of their still images from the shoot below.
Photos: Hanna Smyth and Youth Beyond Borders staff