Rugby players are a high-risk group for stress, anxiety and depression, says New Zealand Rugby's Dr Nathan Price. After a strong response to the mental wellbeing campaign Headfirst, NZR plans to take it into schools and local clubs.
Photo: https://www.headfirst.co.nz/
In a little over a year, the Headfirst website had almost 14,000 visitors, with 5000 people taking self-tests for anxiety or depression.
The initiative is designed to help support players, coaches, clubs and the wider community with their 'mental fitness'.
It’s backed by former All Black Keven Mealamu, Black Ferns Sevens' Ruby Tui and All Black Nehe Milner-Skudder, who has recently come on board as Headfirst's first ambassador.
New Zealand's 150,000 rugby players include many males under 25 and significant numbers of Māori and Pasifika men, all high risk groups for mental illness, NZR education and wellbeing manager Dr Nathan Price says.
While there's good support available in the high-pressure environment of professional rugby, NZR is keen to use its influence to make inroads into the wider community, Price says.
Rugby players are often perceived as “hard Kiwi males” – invulnerable, dominant and unemotional – “but really they also have their own vulnerabilities and they do struggle, and they need to ask for help, as well.”
According to Price, the pressure on high school rugby players has “ramped up enormously” with televised games.
Young men and women often don’t have the skills and tools to cope with the added stresses of friends and peers watching them on TV – and the effect of social media, he says.
“So there’s a real obligation, in a sense, for us to support that, as well.”
New Zealand Rugby are thinking of running education programmes for local club managers and school rugby directors, as well as face-to-face sessions with players in local clubs, Price says.
“Really what we want to get to is that mental fitness, how to get yourself resilient and managing to cope with those ups and downs.
“That’s definitely the key, and it's about us looking to partnerships to help us do that.”
In the future, Nehe Milner-Skudder may speak to schools alongside a mental health and wellbeing expert, Price says.
More information on the Headfirst campaign here.
