Dartmouth Athletics Commits to Mental Health First Aid

When you have a cut on your knee, what do you do?

Grab the first aid kit and reach for a band aid.

But what happens when someone is struggling in a way that isn't so visible?

The recognition and response to a mental health challenge is not always obvious. With that in mind, Dartmouth Athletics took part in Adult Mental Health First Aid training in August and early September to help equip themselves with the necessary tools for situations in which students are experiencing emotional difficulties.

"I was very interested to learn more about how to deal with specific situations," said Porscha Dobson, Marjorie & Herbert Chase '30 Director of Dartmouth Track and Field and Cross Country. "Or more so, what are some key identifiers?"

There was tremendous value, importance and need for this pilot program within athletics, which also included six other participants from across campus in Human Resources, Tuck and Thayer.
Mental Health First Aid

The training occurred in conjunction with the Student Wellness Center at Dartmouth, under the leadership of Katie Lenhoff, Dartmouth's JED Campus Project Manager. Lenhoff co-facilitated the course along with Deryn Smith, a Community Health Partnership Coordinator for Dartmouth Health.

Athletics jumped at the opportunity to pilot the program.

"I immediately raised my hand saying we would be guinea pigs; we will volunteer to step up, to go first for any potential trainings that build skills for staff members to best support our student-athletes," said Ian Connole, Senior Associate Athletics Director for Dartmouth Peak Performance (DP2). "The way DP2 operates is looking at the holistic development of our student-athletes in the center and helping support our student-athletes, coaches and teams to be the best versions of themselves.

"Mental Health First Aid training is a national certification," Connole continued. "It's a very intensive training, 8+ hours of skill building, practicing, learning and testing."

In the end, every Dartmouth Athletics team had at least one coach complete the training, which ran at various points over one month's time. Several support staff in athletics participated as well.

"Entering the training, you go in a little intimidated, not quite sure how to handle certain situations," said associate head football coach Sammy McCorkle.

He wondered, "What are my responsibilities?"

As McCorkle discovered, "They were adamant that your job is not to diagnose. Your job is not to try and fix it. Your job is not to be in charge and try to develop a medical plan."

After all, athletics coaches are not medical doctors or therapists.

"Your job is to learn and have the ability to recognize something that might occur and point it in the right direction, said McCorkle.

As Dobson said, "If you hurt something physically, especially in athletics, you don't just sit there and wait for it to heal on its own. You're proactive and you see an athletic trainer or doctor."

The same should be true for mental health.

Setting the Scene
A number of factors contributed to this training coming to fruition. At the core is an understanding by Dartmouth Athletics about the importance of mental health for its student-athletes and staff. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic added additional stress for students, and mental health was impacted with suicides up among college students nationwide, including several high-profile student-athlete deaths.

"The sports world has seen several prominent suicides, including James Madison University softball player Lauren Bennett last spring," said Connole.

As Dartmouth head softball coach Jen Williams shared, the Big Green empathized with the James Madison community.

"We felt so much for that team and Lauren's family." said Williams. "We see our team struggling with mental health challenges every year, and to know something like that happened to a college softball player, it hits home in a very real way.

"The main thing we've focused on, in the wake of last year's collegiate athlete suicides, is to figure out how to talk about mental health more as a team and figure out how we want to prioritize it," Williams continued. "It also really galvanized several team members to do things such as become ambassadors for mental health organizations such as Morgan's Message and the Hidden Opponent [nonprofits focused on breaking the stigma of mental health]."
Mental Health First Aid

Dartmouth softball mourned, then became determined to make sure this never happens again.

"We are doing everything we can within our team and our network to help people feel like they have resources, they have options and they have people they can turn to," said Williams.

There were also multiple deaths at Dartmouth College and the mental health of the community became a prominent discussion.

"The culmination of everything, locally and nationally, is part of what propelled the campus to increase its commitment to the mental health of our community through collaboration with the JED foundation, who works in educational settings – specifically on creating emotional health and well-being in a community and preventing suicides," said Connole. "We're part of a large working group with representatives from all parts of our campus composed of students, faculty, and staff across divisions. Together with JED, we're looking at the things our campus can be doing to create emotional health and well-being at all levels."

At the Forefront
Athletics has already been at the forefront on campus of mental health initiatives but saw an opportunity to take an important step further with Mental Health First Aid.

"For years, we've had a sport psychologist Mark Hiatt who we work directly with," said Connole, who also has a background in sport psychology and a master's degree in counseling. "And then we have Stephen Gonzalez, who has similar training to my own and works on proactive mental skill training and resiliency building.

"The three of us are all certified mental performance consultants through the association for applied sport psychology," Connole continued. "We've looked at how we proactively tackle and address mental health, mental well-being and mental skill building on our campus and in our athletic community. Then, most recently, the President hired an inspiring new Haldeman Family Director of Athletics and Recreation, Mike Harrity, whose wife, Megan, is a sport and counseling psychologist, and who believes very strongly in supporting the mental health of our student-athletes and coaches."

"The mental health and overall well-being of the students we serve is of supreme importance," said Harrity. "It's vital to equip coaches and staff with the skills to effectively navigate nuanced situations. And while our work to better support students' health and well-being will never be done, our Mental Health First Aid training is an essential component of our overall strategy of care."

Athletics saw Mental Health First Aid as completely aligned with its core goal of supporting holistic development of its community.

"It became an opportunity to align what we're seeking to do through actual training," said Connole. "This is a chance to help our coaches be an active part of supporting the holistic development of their students.

"We let our values guide our actions."

A Fine Line
Coaches must balance the fine line between pushing their student-athletes in order to learn and grow, while also adding mental health considerations into the equation.

That balance is something coaches think about all the time.

"As coaches, we know what it takes to win an Ivy League Championship," said Williams. "We need to talk to our teams about how we are going to do what it takes while also allowing each student-athlete to be a person and student, too. That takes a lot of time, effort and conversation, and it's a moving target. We're going to spend a lot of time thinking and talking about that this year, and we're still going to struggle with it. But at least we're taking steps towards figuring it out."

In his Mental Health First Aid session, McCorkle asked that very question about the tough balance.

And he came away with an important takeaway.

"You definitely want to continue coaching the way you coach and challenge the way you challenge," he said. "But I think the biggest thing all of us are now understanding as coaches is that you have to coach everybody differently. There may be some players you can push on a little bit and get the reaction you want, and there are other players where if you try to do that, you'll lose them.

"You have to understand who you're coaching."

One lesson Dobson brought up was how to approach a student-athlete.

"If you identify something, rather than openly approaching an athlete in front of their teammates or a group, make note of it, then speak with the athlete after practice individually," she said. "Although we're a team and we want to do everything as a team, being very aware of what needs to be athlete-specific or individualized is important.

"We take the same approach in [sport] training as well."

More Tangible Takeaways
The coaches and administration took plenty of tangible pieces away from the training.

"The word they used a lot was de-escalation," said Williams. "When we're having conversations about tough mental health challenges, things our athletes are going through, or mental health crises, it's all about how we are de-escalating the situation. It is going to help with consistency to have terminology and a bit of structure to those conversations.

"Those conversations are to help that person de-escalate the situation so they feel safer and feel better – as much as they can – about the challenge they're facing."

The training also allowed better identification of a potential mental health challenge.

"It's important to treat every situation as seriously as the next because it might just be a one-off incident, or it might not," said Dobson. "It is helpful to relate the generational aspect as well and be able to discuss with other coaches who are in the room about their experiences, knowing that certain communication and language work better for this current generation.

"Communication styles and practices have changed and evolved. As professionals, learning appropriate and improved communication is helpful."

To make progress, stigmas must be overcome, which this training helped accomplish.

"What you might have normally believed or the language that people use towards a situation, it's not entirely true," said Dobson. "Being able to distinguish myths from fact was very important, as well as knocking down that wall of fear that someone may be struggling. We learned to be more direct in our communication with people, because they're most likely reaching out for help."
Mental Health First Aid

Today, mental health is commonly highlighted, but that doesn't mean mental health issues weren't prevalent before.

"I don't believe mental health challenges have increased," said Williams, who previously coached at MIT, another academically rigorous institution. "They've always been there, but I think we just haven't talked about it. We haven't felt freedom to talk about it. We haven't felt safe to talk about it. We haven't felt like we'd have support if we bring it to the table.

"There's still a lot of work to do in destigmatizing mental health challenges, but at least we have a little bit more freedom now," she continued. "And we are trying to get more freedom to help our students, and each other, feel like it's okay to admit that we are struggling."

Dartmouth Athletics Making a Statement
Just the fact that Dartmouth Athletics completed this training is a sign to all contingencies – student-athletes, staff, supporters and more – that mental health matters.

"All the coaches know how important it is," said McCorkle. "After going through the COVID situation, we were all made aware, not just in athletics, but also across the board, about the mental health aspect of things.

"We had a wide range of different sports and coaches in there," McCorkle added, and the training facilitators certainly took note.

"The fact that more than 80 athletics staff have committed more than a full day of their time to educating themselves on mental health challenges and the skills for supporting students is invaluable," said co-facilitator Lenhoff.

Dobson believes student-athletes should know that coaches are receiving the training.

"It's important our student-athletes are aware that their mental health is a priority for us, because this knowledge allows them to know we're thinking about them, that they are appreciated, and that they're not seen as just some commodity or some number," said Dobson. "They're human beings. Our teams are like extensions of our families so, we should do our best to care for them as such."

Things are definitely heading in the right direction, but this is only the beginning.

"Twenty years ago, people didn't know how to talk about anxiety," said Williams. "They didn't know how to talk about depression without feeling like they'd be stigmatized and excluded. We have a different framework about how to discuss these things and it needs more improvement, no question. But at least it is making progress."

As Williams shared, this is a positive start.

"This is just the beginning of education, training and practice that coaches and athletes need to do around mental health challenges," she said. "It's really exciting that the department is supporting the beginning of this journey and we're hoping to see continued support and work for that journey to continue."

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