Over the past 12 months, thanks to the National Lottery Community Fund, Wesport and Off the Record have delivered a project across 6 local sport clubs, aimed at raising awareness of positive mental wellbeing.
With this project, we wanted to focus on how a community sports club can support the mental wellbeing of their junior members. It consisted of mental health awareness training for all club coaches and volunteers to encourage coaches to talk openly about mental health in a positive and solution focused way. We then recruited a select number of junior members training them to facilitate the creation of a junior peer-support structure.
‘I’ve really enjoyed being part of this project. It’s got me and the club as a whole, thinking about the Mental wellbeing of everyone involved here. To know our views and recommendations have been taken seriously by the club is great. We just want to make sure we look out for each other a bit more and offer support when we can.’ Junior peer supporter, N Bristol RFC
As a result of the project, 4 clubs have now signed up to the SRA Mental Health Charter and committed to actions to encourage positive mental wellbeing of their members.
We are now looking to extend the programme to more clubs, as well as expanding on the content so are happy to discuss this with any interested partners. Please contact Lisa Wood on lisa.wood@wesport.org.uk to show your interest. Otherwise watch this space for future developments.