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Hello everyone,
Thank you as always for taking the time to scroll through our latest update. We originally created Friends of Sporting Chance because we wanted to bring the people together who want to support and champion us and are interested in the work we do. Not only do we sense that this project has fostered a small but growing community of good people that will help the charity work towards changing things for the better in professional sport, it feels like we have plans, projects and developments to share with you across all our departments in each monthly update and this can only be a positive thing for Sporting Chance and a positive thing for the athletes out there who rely on us for support.
The education department, I’m pleased to say, is busier than ever, despite the natural break in delivery that we often experience over June and July. We are currently in the first stage of an ambitious programme to change the structure of the department to enable us to deliver more education and different forms of education to more athletes and more groups of staff in professional sport.
How exactly are we going about this? Well, firstly we’re building a pool of therapist educators (from our existing network of over 200 counsellors across the country) who will be key in helping us to design and deliver content that is…..well, therapeutically-led. We know from years of experience that there is room for everyone in sport when it comes to connecting with athletes and support staff and making some form of impact on their attitudes and behaviours towards and around mental health. Our therapists are as well placed as anyone in this regard. They’re the ones working day in, day out with athletes (over 1200 last year) and many of them are very experienced in education settings too.
Secondly, we’ve worked really hard (with some much appreciated help from our friends within sport) to organise three training days for those non-therapists who are interested in becoming part of our education delivery in some shape or form. We’ll be at Warrington Wolves RLFC, Aston Villa and at the London HQ of the Premier League on different days over August (more info on our website here) to host all those who have expressed an interest in working with us and want to learn more about what we do and how and why we do it.
This month we also say good bye and a big thank you to our Northern Education Facilitator Eddie Johnson who is leaving us to take up a role as an Academy Education Manger with the Premier League. Eddie has been an integral part of our education delivery over the last three years and we have witnessed first-hand the difference he has made, particularly to young players in academy settings.
Again, thank you to you for reading and for being a Friend.
Alex Mills
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Head of Education, Communications, and Athlete Engagement