Albany Sharks leading the way in Football West Kick Off The Conversation mental health initiative

Albany Sharks Soccer Club may be one of Australia’s youngest sporting clubs, but the second-year club is leading the sport in mental health awareness.

The Sharks were named equal winners of Football West’s 2024 Kick Off The Conversation program after establishing effective mental health and wellbeing strategies for members.

Sixty clubs participated in the program, which aimed to spread the Think Mental Health message through a variety of initiatives, allowing them to earn points towards a final leaderboard total.

With 165 points, the Sharks tied with Bunbury United Soccer Club, Mandurah City Football Club and Northam Springfield Football Club for the top gong, each pocketing $5000.

Albany Sharks Soccer Club co-ordinator Deborah Guest said it was vital for all sporting clubs to provide a welcoming environment for their players, volunteers and members while also having open and honest discussions about mental health.

“Being involved in sports will always provide opportunities for people to extend their friendship circle and their support network,” she said.

“The health benefits that come from being part of a sporting club are not just physical, they are also mental.

“So getting out there, getting amongst it, making new friends and being with like-minded people gives you an opportunity to really enjoy other people’s company, and also have somebody to talk to.”

The Sharks championed club members Lawrence T’Hart and Samara Luyten, who they said exemplified the club’s vision in their mental health awareness promotion.

“In preseason we put together a group of people that would implement some sweeping changes to improve the mental health of our players and their supporters,” Guest said.

“We basically put together a calendar of events and ways that we would do that, and introduced that to our members over the year.

“We made sure that we put several of our accessible members throughout the club through mental health training, suicide prevention training, and anything we could get our hands on.

But one of the really major things we did . . . was that we introduced a special award this season, based on people who had the most positive impact on our players for the season

“At the end of every game, our players would vote on the person that they felt made a positive impact on their game that night or that week.

“It gave people the ability to actually acknowledge within themselves by writing it down who it was within the club or within their own personal support network that was making a positive difference to them each week.”

The club has not decided how the $5000 prize money will be spent, but Guest insisted it would go a long way in helping the young club maintain its State-leading mental health programs and provide a healthy future for players.