Ambitious plan to create a statewide charter to help sports clubs identify mental health issues and prevent suicides

Zak Hausler knows the pain of losing a loved one to suicide. Now he’s involved in an extraordinary push for mental health training in all 4500 SA sports clubs.

Trained mental health officers from across South Australia’s 4500 sports clubs would help identify mental health red flags and how to respond to them on and off the field.

That’s one of six guiding principles being drafted in an Australian-first document being developed by Sport SA and Breakthrough Mental Health Research Foundation.

Sport SA CEO Leah Cassidy said the SA Mental Health and Sport Charter would be the first state-wide charter of its kind and could see other states follow suit.

Ms Cassidy said the charter – which would be a voluntary agreement with SA sporting clubs and associations – would include mental health first aid training for at least two members of every SA sport club across 75 different codes.

She said the past year’s mental health impact of COVID-19 had many sporting clubs re-emphasising they don’t understand mental health well enough, nor have the education and resources to address it.

“Our clubs need to have the confidence to ask – are you okay? And then know what to do about it,” she said.

Sport SA CEO Leah Cassidy and her son Noah. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

A roundtable of 40 sport club and association representatives including football, basketball, soccer, netball, rugby and cricket, met last Thursday to map out the historic document. Researchers from Flinders University and Commissioner for Children and Young People Helen Connelly were also part of the workshop.

Mental health in sport has been spotlighted nationwide following the deaths of a handful of high-profile sportsmen and women in the past three years, especially as sports struggled with a stop-start 2020 season due to the global pandemic.

Breakthrough executive director John Mannion said mental health did not discriminate in sport, affecting professional athletes on the national and international stage as equally as those on the neighbourhood oval.

Round 9 of the 2020 AFL season saw incredible scenes as the Kangaroos celebrated Majak Daw’s first game back since he sustained serious injuries in a fall from Melbourne’s Bolte Bridge. Daw has since worked to improve awareness around mental health issues throughout the community. Picture: Michael Klein

Breakthrough Mental Health Research Foundation executive director John Mannion

Sport, he said, engaged more than 1.5 million South Australians a year, was a known natural remedy for improving mental health and the perfect community platform to learn how to be mentally fit and promote mental fitness.

“Sporting clubs are trusted voices in their communities and are an ideal vehicle to drive the message about mental health awareness and the need for research to help tackle mental illness head-on,” said Mr Mannion.

The charter is expected to be finalised by the end of this year.

Thursday’s workshop was funded through a suicide prevention grant from the SA Health Office of the Chief Psychiatrist, and the charter’s research will be supported by a Hospital Research Foundation Group grant.

The South Australian National Football League (SANFL) will run the Breakthrough Community Round to support fundraising for mental health research at Statewide Super SANFL rounds from August 14 and SANFLW competitions from April 24.