We’re kicking off Mental Health Awareness Week 2020 by sharing with our members the opportunity to take UK Coaching’s online course ‘Mental Health Awareness for Sport & Physical Activity’ to build knowledge and understanding of mental health - for free!
Mental Health Awareness Week 2020 is hosted by the Mental Health Foundation and takes place from 18-24 May 2020. The theme of this year’s week is ‘kindness’ and the video ad produced by the Mental Health Foundation states, “at times like these when the world feels upside down, kindness can be the key to turning things around.” BSAC believes this is a message our community can thrive off.
BSAC CEO Mary Tetley said:
Despite being unable to dive at present*, our community has really come together and shown kindness and support for everyone. This is the message we would like to emphasis this week.
* Please note that this statement was made on 18 May 2020 and BSAC has since released guidance on a phased return to diving.
As part of Mental Health Awareness Week, UK Coaching has released its online course for coaches regarding mental health awareness to the wider coaching community and for BSAC that means, instructors, coaches, Branch Officers and anyone else that supports members through their BSAC journey. The course, usually £18, will be available on the UK Coaching website for free purchase until the end of August. BSAC would like to encourage its Branch Officers and Instructors to grasp this opportunity and take the course while they can. The course is self-paced, meaning you can stop and start to fit with your own time scale, but is estimated to only take 2-3 hours in total.
Find out more and take the course
The course covers four modules which are designed to build knowledge and understanding of mental health, as well as providing practical skills and strategies to help increase resilience, self-esteem and confidence, as well as ways to adapt sport and physical activity sessions to make them more inclusive. There will also be modules on how to enable and support mental health recovery and tackle stigma and discrimination.
This course is developed and supported by UK mental health charity, Mind, and features a variety of learning activities including quizzes, case studies and videos in order to help coaches:
- better understand mental health, the misconceptions and how to recognise the red flags
- appreciate the impact and importance of sport and physical activity on mental health
- recognise the barriers to participating in physical activity, and put in place practical ways you can adapt your sessions to overcome them
- understand and connect with people helping to provide an inclusive, person-centred experience
- communicate effectively and offer appropriate guidance
- be confident about opening and holding a conversation about mental health with someone you coach
- make your club or organisation more inclusive, and better prepared to be able to support people experiencing mental health problems
