Mental Health Literacy Training

Why this matters

This guideline is about awareness and culture: understanding what mental health is, reducing the stigma around it, and recognizing the early, non-crisis signs of distress — withdrawal, mood changes, sleep disruption, changes in performance. The goal is a climate where athletes feel safe speaking up before a crisis occurs.

When coaches, administrators and parents/guardians understand mental health basics, they can normalize conversations about emotional well-being, notice when an athlete is struggling, and connect them to appropriate support. This is not about diagnosing or treating. It is about awareness, early recognition, and creating a culture where seeking help is seen as a sign of strength.

Implementation protocol

1. Require mental health literacy training for coaches

   Coaches spend the most time with athletes and are often first to notice changes in behavior, mood or performance. Literacy training equips them to recognize early warning signs, understand sport-specific stressors, reduce stigma through language and action, and start supportive conversations without attempting to diagnose or treat.

   Implementation list

   • All coaches complete mental health literacy training before beginning their roles or within their first season.
   • Recommended option: Coach Beyond (The Ohio State University) — a 17-minute introduction for a whole coaching staff, or a one-hour course for middle and high school settings. Both are listed under Additional resources below.
   • Provide refresher training every 2–3 years, plus brief annual updates on new resources or policy changes.
   • Track completion and include it in coach credentialing requirements.
   • Consider offering the training to parents/guardians at preseason meetings to build shared understanding across the athlete's support network.

2. Designate a Mental Health Point Person

   A designated point person creates organizational accountability, gives staff and athletes a clear resource, maintains continuity of knowledge about guidelines and referral options, and acts as a culture carrier. This role bridges program operations and mental health support systems. This role is for organizational oversight of practices and policies and requires someone who is trained on organizational systems, not clinical mental health skills.

   Implementation list

   • Formally designate a Mental Health Point Person. This could be an athletic director, program coordinator, school counselor with sport involvement, athletic trainer with mental health training, or mental performance consultant.
   • Define the role and responsibilities clearly.
   • Communicate their contact information to all coaches, staff, parents/guardians and athletes at the start of each season.
   • Have the point person meet with leadership at least quarterly to report on initiatives, concerns and needs.

   Mental Health Point Person

3. Establish regular athlete well-being feedback mechanisms

   Structured opportunities for athletes to give feedback ensure their voices are heard, surface team climate issues before they escalate, and provide data to guide programming. Anonymity reduces barriers to honest disclosure about sensitive concerns.

   Implementation list

   • Run an athlete well-being survey at mid-season and end-of-season.
   • Assess: overall team climate and psychological safety; stress related to sport participation; perceptions of coach support and communication; access to mental health resources; experiences of burnout or overtraining; and suggestions for improvement.
   • Keep surveys anonymous, administer them electronically, and include both quantitative ratings and open-ended questions.
   • Analyze results and share key findings with staff and athletes in aggregate, protecting individual confidentiality. Use them to build action plans.
   • Close the loop: communicate what will change based on athlete input, and follow through.
   • For athletes under 13, use age-appropriate methods — brief check-in questions, emoji-based mood tracking, or facilitated small group discussion.

   End-of-Season Developmental Experience Survey

4. Develop sport-specific mental health conversation skills

   Knowledge alone is insufficient. Staff need practical skills to initiate supportive conversations in sport contexts — recognising early warning signs in realistic situations such as performance slumps, injury recovery or team conflict, and responding without overstepping professional boundaries.

   Build this with a professional, not alone. Conversation-skills training should be designed and delivered in partnership with a licensed social worker, school counselor or mental health specialist. This is the step to outsource: the people who do this work know where a supportive conversation ends and clinical judgement begins, and they can correct a coach in the moment. A program writing its own scripts is teaching staff to improvise at exactly the point where improvising causes harm.

Additional resources

• Coach Beyond — The Ohio State UniversityMental health literacy training built for sport coaches. Two options below; both are free through 2029. Register at go.osu.edu/CBxUSCAH using the program code SCsports.
• Coach Beyond: Mental Health 101About 17 minutes. The accessible starting point for a youth sport organization — short enough to run inside a preseason coaches’ meeting. Delivered with the U.S. Council for Athletes’ Health.
• Coach Beyond: Supporting Student-Athlete Mental HealthAbout one hour, and the more comprehensive option for middle and high school settings: recognising signs and symptoms, responding to them, and linking athletes to appropriate support. Meets the mental health requirement for Ohio’s Pupil Activity Permit.
• NFHS Learning Center — nfhslearn.comFree online course: Bullying, Hazing and Inappropriate Behaviors.
• The Jed Foundation — jedfoundation.orgMental health and suicide prevention resources for teens and young adults.

Key evidence and supporting research

Athletes face significant obstacles to seeking mental health support — research indicates fewer than one in four access formal help. Sport-specific barriers include stigma tied to athlete identity and sport culture, fear of deselection, confidentiality concerns, lack of awareness, low mental health literacy, and negative attitudes toward services. Sport-based interventions targeting mental health literacy show positive effects on de-stigmatizing attitudes, mental health knowledge, and support provided to athletes. Movember's Ahead of the Game programme demonstrated significant improvements in depression and anxiety literacy, formal help-seeking intentions, and resilience among adolescent males.