NCAA summit focuses on MENTAL HEALTH AND WELL-BEING of student-athletes of color Recommendations to be released to help campuses better support student-athletes of color. During eight hours of Zoom calls in August, approximately 50 professionals from mental health, higher education and sports medicine organizations discussed mental health disparities facing student-athletes of color and reflected on ways to better support them. The occasion: The NCAA’s Diverse Student-Athlete Mental Health and Well-Being Summit, a joint effort between the Association’s Sport Science Institute and the office of inclusion. The reasons for holding the summit, which included current and former student-athletes, were layered. To start, it’s part of the NCAA’s ongoing effort to amplify the need of supporting the mental health of student-athletes. In addition, the impact of COVID-19 has shed light on health disparities that exist in the United States, including in mental health. Student-athletes have faced significant mental health challenges during this pandemic, a survey in the spring revealed. Recent social injustices have added even more mental health challenges, especially for student-athletes of color. The summit was an opportunity to discuss those issues and start working toward solutions to better support student-athletes of color. “It was definitely a great and unparalleled experience,” said Jaila Tolbert, a former volleyball player at Virginia Tech and a member of the Board of Governors Student-Athlete Engagement Committee. “I got the opportunity to listen to some thought leaders and really take in a lot of information, some hard information about the diversity and wellbeing of Black student-athletes and how they’re
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faring during COVID and really uncertain times. On top of that, we’re fighting a whole different battle, a whole different virus with racial injustice. Obviously, there’s some actionable change that needs to happen.” Tolbert was one of five student-athlete voices heard in the summit. The other four were Division I SAAC’s Alexis Garrett, Division II SAAC’s Angel BautistaPonce, Division III SAAC’s Devonte Amos, and Courtney Turner, a former student-athlete. “It was great to get their perspective because often times their voice is left out, especially because some of their institutions don’t have the resources that some of the larger athletic departments have,” said Stephany Coakley, senior associate athletics director/mental health at Temple, who served as the co-chair of the summit’s steering committee. “It’s important to put services in place that are going to limit the barriers to care that studentathletes from diverse populations experience. This can be achieved by having staff who are culturally competent, having staff of color and other diverse backgrounds providing mental health care, creating resources that speak to their lived experience as opposed to somebody else’s lived experience. This work is vital. I’m glad we’ve taken the time to do it. I look forward to publishing our results and continuing to develop what we started.” In the coming weeks, proposed action items from the summit will be released. They will be in the form of recommendations and foundational statements to assist NCAA schools and conferences in addressing the topic through education, research and policy development. NABC
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