Why ALL young Athletes need a Well-being Coach!

59% of the young Athletes valued having a wellbeing coach as part of their physical training!

We conducted a case study to introduce a Well-Being Coach for the Squad at Wye Gymnastics and Galaxy Cheerleading, providing education on core areas within mental well-being within a positive environment.

Wye and Galaxy recognise the importance of supporting the mental resilience of young athletes. Connecting the community to cohorts that offer services in a more proactive way, focusing on education within youth well-being. This enables individuals to develop further as an athlete but also into well-rounded individuals building social skills, confidence, self-esteem, teamwork, and leaderships skills.

Wye Gymnastics and Galaxy Cheerleading aim to lead the way with this case study and used a research based Mental Health assessment (Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale) and qualitative data to measure success.

Mental Heath in the spotlight

With the subject of mental health in the high-pressure sport of gymnastics hitting the headlines at the Tokyo Olympics, awareness has never been higher. Couple that with the recent Pandemic and we are starting to see the knock-on effects on our young athlete’s mental health and performance.

While evidence of short/medium term impact of the pandemic has emerged for adults there are very few research studies exist for young people. A recent report in The Journal of Public Health by Chadi et Al (February 2022), states that combining observations from different cohorts could help examine a broad range of mental health indicators in specific age groups and in vulnerable population groups, such as young people, whose well-being may be more severely affected by the event.

The results were analysed in March 2023 to recognise the positive impact, we will deepen this case study by encouraging further clubs to engage in this research and use a Wellbeing coach.

The Journal of Public Health by Chadi et Al (February 2022), COVID-19 and the impacts on youth mental health: emerging evidence from longitudinal studies – PubMed (nih.gov)

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