ATHLETE WELFARE

SUPPORTING MENTAL HEALTH & WELL-BEING

Good mental health means being generally able to think, feel and react in the ways that you need and want to live your life. But if you go through a period of poor mental health, you might find the ways you’re frequently thinking, feeling, or reacting become difficult, or even impossible, to cope with. This can feel just as bad as a physical illness, or even worse.

Mental health problems can affect anyone regardless of age, race, religion, or income. They affect around one in four people in any given year and can range from common problems, such as depression and anxiety, to rarer problems such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Physical health problems tend to be better understood than mental health problems, and there is still stigma and confusion around mental health problems. Speaking about mental health shouldn’t be seen as being scary, taboo or something to avoid, as the reality is mental health affects everybody and is part and parcel of everyday life.

Struggling with your mental health doesn’t make you weak, it makes you human.

HOW TO FIND HELP

You might be worried about your own mental health and how it could affect your life, you might feel that it’s difficult or stressful, however there are lots of things you can try that could help your wellbeing and England Athletics has a webpage dedicated to providing support and links to many organisations that can help, click here to find out more.

In addition to this, below are some organisations that may also be able to help you.

• Samaritans – Telephone: 116 123 (24 hours a day, free to call) – Provides confidential, non-judgmental emotional support for people experiencing feelings of distress or despair, including those that could lead to suicide.
• Mind – Telephone: 0300 123 3393 (9am5pm Monday to Friday) – Mind provides confidential mental health information services. With support and understanding, Mind enables people to make informed choices. The Infoline gives information on types of mental distress, where to get help, drug treatments, alternative therapies and advocacy.
• Childline – Telephone: 0800 1111 – ChildLine is a private and confidential service for children and young people up to the age of nineteen. You can contact a ChildLine counsellor for free about anything no problem is too big or too small.
• Shout – If you are struggling to cope and need to talk, trained Shout Volunteers are there, day or night. By texting the word ‘SHOUT’ to 85258 you will start a conversation with a trained Shout Volunteer, who will text you back and forth, sharing only what you feel comfortable with. 
• Calm – Telephone: 0800 58 58 58 (5pm – midnight) – Calm runs a free and confidential helpline and webchat – open from 5pm to midnight every day, for anyone who needs to talk about life’s problems.
• HopelineUK – Telephone: 0800 068 41 41 (10am – 10pm) – This is a confidential support and advice service for children and young people under the age of 35 who are experiencing thoughts of suicide or anyone concerned that a young person could be thinking about suicide.
• Hub of Hope – The Hub of Hope is the UK’s leading mental health support database. It is provided by national mental health charity, Chasing the Stigma, and brings local, national, peer, community, charity, private and NHS mental health support and services together in one place for the first time.

KEEPING SAFE ONLINE

The Anglerfish of the Social Media Sea

The Anglerfish is named so because of the species’ characteristic predatory methods. In simple terms, it has a brightly lit filament that protrudes from its spine and dangles over its head (if you’ve ever watched Finding Nemo – you’ll remember it!) luring its prey in. Similarly, dangerous human predators dangle their metaphorical lures on social media platforms, enticing young users into conversation, and the popularity of trends can attract young users into taking part in silly, often dangerous acts.

There are two elements to this awareness piece:

1. Raising awareness of the dangers present for predators to groom children using online platforms.
2. Potentially dangerous social media trends/crazes/challenges.

Part I: Can you trust that people are who they say they are?

Most social media platforms require users to be at least 13 years old to set up an account, but they are often not required to provide any evidence of age, leading to both minors, and adults posing as minors, being on the platforms together. According to Ofcom, children aged 8-11 were most likely to have profiles on TikTok (34%) and YouTube (27%) with many children having set up their accounts themselves.

You can’t always rely on platform providers to provide safeguards, and Ofcom’s research also notes that only a third of parents were aware of the minimum age requirement on social media platforms. If the sites and apps your child is using can’t verify the age of their users, it’s important to understand the risk of them talking to people they don’t know from the real world.

Part II: Trends/Challenges

While social media can be really fun for all age groups, it particularly attracts younger users who want to “fit in”. Over the past 2 years, there have been an increasing number of crazes/trends and challenges with hashtags associated with them, leading to young people attempting them and uploading the videos.

To name a few:

• Benadryl challenge – Challenging each other to take large doses of Benadryl, an antiallergic drug, to trigger hallucinations. Although pills usually only make you sleepy, when taken in large enough doses, they can be fatal.
• Black-out challenge – holding your breath until you pass out. This action is sometimes to the point of brain damage or can be fatal.
• Penny challenge – Sliding a penny behind a partially plugged phone charger. While this trend looks harmless, a coin can crash into metal prongs, causing sparks, damage to electrical systems and in some cases, fires.
• Skull breaker challenge – It involved two people kicking the legs of a third person as they jumped, causing them to fall over, and resulted in numerous injuries.

Trends come fast but disappear just as quickly, replaced by new ones, but some have lifelong consequences.

If you’re a parent, you know what’s best for your child but regularly having conversations with your children about the ugly truths of the internet is important. To do that, you may find it helpful to update yourself on these trends to promptly educate and prevent your child from trying them.

Maybe join your child in their online activities- knowing where they spend their time online means you can also make sure those apps, games, and websites your child is using are age-appropriate and review privacy settings.

Act promptly: When you find a disturbing video, you can block it to make sure it doesn’t show up again. You can also report this so it can be reviewed and removed.

HOW TO FIND HELP

There are plenty of handy resources available out there including:

• NEQE Safeguarding Group – This is a fantastic website with lots of information about safeguarding. I would highly recommend signing up for the weekly newsletter. This site also has a safety cards section with information on how to stay safe on lots of online platforms and an online safety section.
• Internet Matters – Helping parents to keep children safe online with useful advice and tips.
• Revenge Porn Helpline or 03456 000 459 for anyone who has had intimate images shared online without consent.
• Thinkuknow – For children, young people, and their parents/carers. This has information and resources for keeping children safe online.
• NSPCC – Information on keeping children safe online, including guides to popular games such as Minecraft and Pokemon Go.
• CoNAC Online & Social Media Policy