Positive moves for mental health

World Mental Health Day on October 10 presented us of with some confronting statistics.

Not least among these, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, is that 43 per cent of Australians aged 16-85 years had experienced a mental disorder at some time in their life.

More confronting is that suicide rates continue to climb, with 3,249 Australians losing their will to live in 2022, representing an age-standardised suicide death rate of 12.3 per 100,000 people (up from 12.1 in 2021).

As confronting as they may be, it’s important to see statistics and facts around mental health being rolled out and communicated far more readily than even just a few years ago.

Creating environments to talk freely about mental health has long been promoted by psychologists to destigmatise, build greater awareness and, ultimately, a more understanding and empathetic society.

The benefits of regular physical exercise have also been endorsed by the experts as a strong antidote to maintaining our mental wellbeing.

By extension, the confluence of both communication and physical exertion places organised sport in a unique position to help address the mental wellbeing of our society.

According to the Australian Sports Federation, around 14 million Australians participate in sport annually. And while that includes individual and unstructured sport, it provides a solid foundation from which to continue to build mental health awareness and wellbeing.

The recent launch of SportWest’s True Sport Mental Health and Wellbeing Initiative is a positive step to provide sporting organisations, employees and volunteers with the support and resources they need at the grassroots.

Chief executive Matt Fulton said sporting organisations were an important hub for providing all aspects of community support. However, most are under-resourced when it comes to managing or responding to critical incidents.

“When people experience a crisis, they often come to their sporting community for support, whether the incident was sport related or not,” he said.

“We recognise the role that our communities play and felt it was incumbent upon us, along with the Mental Health Commission, to provide the necessary resources for our stakeholders.

“This initiative has been designed to upskill the WA sporting sector around incident response, intervention, prevention and the proactive promotion of mental health and wellbeing.”

At the professional level, there has been an uptick in athletes referencing their own mental health challenges, reflecting the wider community trend.

Former world number one tennis player Naomi Osaka dropped out of the 2021 French Open and skipped her post-match media conference citing the “detrimental impact that facing media scrutiny had on her mental health”.

Closer to home, Bailey Smith, Majak Daw, Will Pucovski and Meg Lanning have all spoken of the pressures of their respective sports and the mental challenges it can bring.

And the sudden death in 2022 of former rugby league player and coach Paul Green highlighted how the pressures of professional sport can extend beyond the field of play.

While the drive for on-field success and financial profits in the professional domain has at times left mental health behind, that dynamic has now changed.

Jon Haines, whose career has spanned several high-performance roles in sport, said modern sporting organisations had a sharper focus on mental wellbeing.

“From my experience, it starts with creating environments where people know they can truly be themselves. They need to feel a high sense of belonging and self-worth, across multiple pillars, and not just about athletic performance,” he said.

“Secondly, we need to do the due diligence on the individual athletes coming into our environment. Not just from a physical perspective, but from a psychological and emotional perspective, so we are fully informed and can put the right support around them.

“Finally, we must demonstrate we’re committed to the full journey with the athlete. From pathway development, throughout their career, into transition and post-career. A commitment that extends beyond the athlete to their family, their partner and their wider support network.

“A result of demonstrating genuine and holistic care is the athlete feeling a clear sense of connection and making them better equipped mentally to deal with challenges as they arise.

“But ultimately, and this is the best piece, if high performance environments get the holistic care model right, their athletes will deliver their best performances, more consistently.”

• John Gardner is the founder of Sustainable Sport Australia and has spent more than 25 years consulting to the business, NFP and sporting sectors