Research

The Ahead of the Game program increases depression literacy, anxiety literacy, intentions to seek help from formal sources, confidence to seek mental health information, resilience, and wellbeing.

It equips young people who participate in organised sports with the knowledge, intentions, confidence, and psychosocial resources necessary to promote mental health, and support better identification of and respond to mental health problems.

We found that young people didn't talk about mental health with their friends. However, they thought that sport would be an engaging setting to learn about mental health.

Young people also thought that certain people such as coaches, parents and elite athletes could be key to supporting mental health in the sports setting...

We found that parents worry about their child potentially developing a mental health problem. On top of that, they worry about their own ability to then respond to it.

Research found that parents wanted more mental health information in general. They also wanted the skills to be able to recognise the difference between common adolescent behaviour and symptoms of a more serious problem.

We found that coaches perceived their role as a youth sport coach to be diverse — including their role in promoting mental health. Some coaches preferred to work directly with players, whereas others preferred to communicate directly with parents.

Overall there was a high need for coaches to receive education on how to recognise the warning signs of mental health problems.

We found that players who attended the program showed:

• decreased stigmatising attitudes
• increased intentions to help a teammate
• increased knowledge about anxiety and depression

No negative side-effects of the program were evident throughout the testing and research.

The most successful results from running the program came from working with sporting teams that:

• are ready and have available resources to run the program
• have knowledgeable staff that understand the way local teams work
• have staff knowledgeable in mental health programs

All of these criteria proved majorly beneficial in running the program.