The Student-Athlete Mental Health Initiative or SAMHI, is a non-profit organization in Canada working to promote good mental health among student-athletes. Many universities across Canada have their own student-athlete run teams working to promote mental health initiatives on their campuses. They have a goal of eliminating the stigma around mental health and illness and want to bring a focus to supporting, improving and maintaining the mental health of their fellow student-athletes.
At Dalhousie the leadership group of the Tigers SAMHI team includes swimmers Victoria Macdonald and Isabel Sarty and basketball player Adam Sellan.
“The initiative works to support student-athletes by raising awareness, educating, and lowering the stigma surrounding mental health in sport through events, promoting conversations, and fundraisers for the charity,” says Sarty. “The way in which this is done may change year to year, however what has been consistent the last few years has been our events with the Garron Centre for Child and Adolescent Mental Health at the IWK, Bell Let’s Talk Day events at varsity home games and the student-athlete fundraiser.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic many things have been impacted, and SAMHI’s initiatives have not been spared. The shift from in-person classes to online learning, the cancellation of the competition and the lack of social interaction have all affected the student-athlete experience and their mental health.
“Speaking for myself, I have found this year to be extremely challenging on my mental health,” adds Sarty. “I love to have structure in my days, so when my school, exercise, and social routine was suddenly removed, I began to struggle. In addition to working on my own strategies to maintain good mental health throughout this semester, my role with SAMHI has helped give me back some of that structure I need.”
The shift from in-person to virtual events has been difficult for the team. They were able to hold a few in-person events in the fall at the Garron Centre, allowing student-athletes and patients to play organized games and talk about the impact of exercise on one’s mental health. They also put on an outdoor yoga event on Halloween for the children.
Not unlike many other organizations who focused on in-person events, they worked to enhance their online presence this year, engaging in conversation on their Instagram account.
“Our main focus in the fall was to build a feeling of community and support amongst the athletes and to bring awareness to taking care of their mental health and introducing them to resources around campus to help,” says Sarty. “It is difficult to build the same relationships, trust, and connections through a screen. We have been using social media platforms to stay connected and promote our events, and it has been amazing to see such a high level of engagement from our fellow student-athletes.”
Given all the changes this year Sarty notes that it is especially important to build and maintain the community and a support system for the athletes – many of whom are far away from their families. Sellan feels their efforts appear to be working.
“So many athletes have expressed an interested in participating in SAMHI this year – more than ever before,” he says. “It has been incredible to see people step up to support one another during such a challenging time for everybody.”
With the new semester brings a new list of events to try to adapt to the virtual world. SAMHI will be hosting an online trivia night for Bell Let’s Talk Day on Thursday, January 28 and are in planning mode for their student-athlete fundraiser at the end of the winter term.
“The more attention that can be brought to mental health and well-being, especially now with so much uncertainty and changes occurring in the world, is very beneficial,” says Sarty. “That said, I believe there should be more initiatives like this all the time. There is still stigma surrounding mental health and illness and the more we continue to talk about it and normalize conversations on these topics, the better. Hopefully by continuing to bring attention to mental health and wellness, the stigma surrounding these topics will be lowered and more great resources and support will continue to be provided.”
Now more than ever, every action counts. On Bell Let’s Talk Day, Bell will donate more towards mental health initiatives in Canada by contributing 5¢ for every applicable text, call, tweet or TikTok video using #BellLetsTalk, social media video view and use of our Facebook frame or Snapchat filter.
For more information, visit Bell Let’s Talk.