Mental Health Awareness Spotlight: CHJS Launch New Playbook for Coaches

May 26, 2023 

In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month in the US, we’re highlighting work by our partners and network members to improve mental wellbeing through sport. The Center for Healing and Justice Through Sport (CHJS) – a member of our Return to Play Fund Expert Advisory Council – is a non-profit made up of a community of coaches, sport experts, psychologists, scientists and strategists on a mission to make sport healing for all. Last week they launched a resource for youth sport providers, recognizing the need to expand support for the coaches supporting our youth. 

Coaches have always played an important role in young lives, socially, emotionally and mentally. However, coaches themselves aren't recieving the support they need to help with their athletes wellbeing, especially in today's stressful environment and with growing social inequities contributing to traumas. To address this, CHJS released ‘Nothing Heals Like Sport: A New Playbook for Coaches’ to expand coaches' tools to support modern athletes and promote a positive experience for all. 

"Unfortunately, coaches are fighting a system that defines success in only one way -- WINS. Coaches exist in a structure that doesn't invest in them, their development or aid in maximizing their impact. In today's climate, we're asking more of coaches than ever before. Modern coaching has proven to all that the quality of the coach-athlete relationship is the primary predictor for an athlete's performance. And without an expanded tool set, coaches can feel frustrated as they work to meet the diverse needs of their athletes," states the resource.  

As reported in Aspen Institute's State of Play 2022 report, the top trend in coaching is that they are asking for more help to address the mental health of players:

• Only 18% in the National Coach Survey reported feeling highly confident in their ability to link athletes to mental health resources.
• Very few coaches felt confident in identifying off-field stressors for athletes (19%) and referring athletes to support (18%).
• Coaches expressed interest in more training on relationship building (70%), performance anxiety (70%), motivational techniques (70%), leadership development (69%), team dynamics (67%) and mental health (67%). 

CHJS's Playbook provides essential tools to help coaches better understand what happens as athletes develop and support athletes through adversity – on and off the field. The toolkit gives a crash course on how the brain develops and processes information through everyday life, trauma and sport. It also provides an exploration of the three ways sport can contribute to healing: relationships, movement and manageable stress. It wraps up with a look at how to integrate brain-based, healing-centered strategies into sport experiences.

The Playbook's development was fueled by Dr. Bruce D. Perry M.D., Ph.D. and the Neurosequential Network. Skills and strategies within merge Dr. Perry’s core concepts and the coaching expertise of CHJS. “The spaces where athletes perform their best athletically are exactly those spaces where they feel safe, seen and encouraged to be their whole selves. They are the spaces of healing-centered, brain-based coaching... These are the tools that help coaches, so coaches can then help athletes,” states CHJS. 

“When you put Bruce Duncan Perry’s groundbreaking neuroscience work together with CHJS’ experience with coaches and young people who have experienced adversity, you end up with something special. I’m proud of this piece and hope people will find it useful,” shared CHJS Founder, Megan Bartlett. 

"We believe these tools will help YOU so that you can then support your athletes in all the ways a modern athlete requires. We also know that when your athletes feel supported and take ownership of their team, you win more games (a lot more games). The spaces where athletes perform their best athletically are exactly those spaces where they feel safe, seen and encouraged to be their whole selves. They are the spaces of healing-centered, brain-based coaching."

"Nothing Heals Like Sport – A New Playbook for Coaches" can be downloaded here. 

Co-founded by Beyond Sport and ESPN, the Return to Play Fund uses sport to center health, wellbeing and systemic solutions to the heart of community recovery across the United States. CHJS and Aspen Institute are members of the Fund’s Expert Advisory Council and contributed resources for coaches and youth sport providers to promote health and wellbeing, among other areas.