National statistics show that the number of student-athletes who struggle with mental health is comparable to the general student population. Even so, only 10% of college athletes who have mental health conditions seek help, according to the nonprofit Athletes for Hope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At Colgate, the Office of Counseling and Psychological Services has teamed up with the athletics staff to normalize and reduce any stigma associated with mental health care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAthletes struggle historically to utilize these services,\u201d says Steve Chouinard, senior associate athletics director for health and performance. \u201cThere has been an \u2018athletes are tougher\u2019 [attitude] that you can battle through anything, from [a hurt] ankle to a mental health issue.\u201d Chouinard has been collaborating with counseling staff members Dawn LaFrance, Christian Beck, and Christy Reed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the past five years, Beck has hosted satellite hours at Reid Athletic Center. Students can sign up for a meeting with him or just drop in for casual conversation. In the beginning, Beck wasn\u2019t seeing a lot of faces come through his door, but \u201cnow there\u2019s plenty of traffic, so that tells me that there was a need and we just had to make it more accessible,\u201d says LaFrance, assistant vice president of counseling and psychological services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beck\u2019s clinical interest is in sports performance anxiety, and he\u2019s also been an athlete himself, so \u201cI\u2019m able to understand their timelines, their commitments with lifts, practice, traveling \u2014 all that they\u2019re juggling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n“The work we\u2019ve been doing on Wednesdays is invaluable, and the conversations that occur after are sometimes even more valuable.”<\/p>\nSteve Chouinard, senior associate athletics director for health and performance<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
The counselors also have Wellness Wednesdays for the coaches and athletics administrators, leading seminars, workshops, or presentations on various health and wellness topics. Sometimes, they\u2019ll enlist the help of other Colgate experts \u2014 for example, Dr. Ellen Larson \u201994 (director of Student Health Services) and professors Krista Ingram (biology) and Lauren Philbrook (psychology) came to talk to the group about the importance of good sleep habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe work we\u2019ve been doing on Wednesdays is invaluable, and the conversations that occur after are sometimes even more valuable,\u201d Chouinard says. \u201cI know, for a fact, that a bunch of coaches feel a lot better having gone through it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He says that this training is \u201cnot dissimilar to teaching a coach how to do CPR. They can be a really important resource for a student in crisis.\u201d LaFrance adds that they\u2019re giving coaches some skills, but also helping them know when it\u2019s time to refer the students to a counselor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One assessment measure the athletics staff has implemented is on the survey student-athletes complete before their workouts. The eight questions ask about the student-athlete\u2019s current status and condition, but there are two questions related to mental health. By combining these responses with their personal knowledge of student-athletes, athletic trainers and strength coaches can have a sense of when to check in with student-athletes or guide them toward other resources. Sometimes they\u2019ll refer a student to counseling, but often the conversation can end with the student just being grateful someone is looking out for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For an additional safety net, student wellness advocates who are volunteers on each athletic team are trained by counselors to offer peer-to-peer support. \u201cIf you don\u2019t want to talk to a coach or a counselor, but you want a resource on campus, they\u2019re well versed,\u201d Chouinard says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This multipronged approach is just one part of the University\u2019s integrated health and wellness programming, where staff members from various areas come together to keep students safe and healthy. \u201cWe\u2019re learning more and more about how the brain and body work together,\u201d LaFrance says, \u201cso we can\u2019t just involve one area without it all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Office of Counseling and Psychological Services is normalizing mental health care for Colgate’s student-athletes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1263,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[40,474,81],"coauthors":[388],"class_list":["post-14992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-scene","tag-athletics","tag-counseling","tag-mental-health"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-3TO","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1263"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14992"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15156,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14992\/revisions\/15156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14992"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=14992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}