14 July 2026<\/p>\n
The SANFL\u00a0has launched a Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy\u00a0that will be rolled out at SANFL clubs to support the mental health and wellbeing of all players,\u00a0coaches\u00a0and\u00a0officials.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Guided by SANFL and SANFLW players, industry professionals and the AFL, the strategy\u00a0has a strong focus on education and increasing clubs\u2019 ability to\u00a0identify, respond and support those experiencing mental health issues as early as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A working group featuring a representative from each club has been involved in\u00a0creating the strategy\u00a0including\u00a0Glenelg\u2019s Hugh Stagg, Norwood\u2019s Jack Heard,\u00a0West Adelaide\u2019s\u00a0Adrienne\u00a0Davies, Eagles CEO David Couzner,\u00a0and South Adelaide\u2019s General Manager of Football Brent Reilly.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA big motivator for me being involved in this strategy is to make it easy and create a clear process within clubs for players, coaches and volunteers to get the right support when they need it,\u201d said Stagg, who works for the Breakthrough Mental Health Research Foundation as Community Education Specialist. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSANFL players are\u00a0high-risk for mental illness\u00a0which\u00a0is\u00a0prevalent in young people and\u00a0especially\u00a0men\u00a0so as a 23-year-old male working in this space I see and hear a lot of the challenges that my teammates and\u00a0players\u00a0face.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m\u00a0very passionate about giving people the skills to better deal with their own personal challenges and how to look after your mates and those around you,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The premiership winning Tiger has personally run two mental health first aid courses at\u00a0Glenelg\u00a0which has resulted in 30 people at the club\u00a0being accredited mental health\u00a0\u201cfirst aiders\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The strategy\u00a0encourages a minimum of five\u00a0people at each club\u00a0to be\u00a0accredited in this area.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn\u00a0workplaces and football clubs \u2013 people\u00a0are required to have\u00a0physical first aid\u00a0qualifications, and personally my goal is to make mental first aid as mandatory,\u00a0accepted and available as\u00a0your\u00a0physical first aiders,\u201d said Stagg who\u2019s licensed\u00a0to deliver the Mental First Aid Australia program.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHow often in a workplace do you use physical first aid?\u00a0And\u00a0how many mental health challenges do\u00a0you see\u00a0in a workplace? Often it sways to the latter\u00a0so\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0the reason\u00a0SANFL\u00a0wanted to bring that\u00a0in because\u00a0it is a\u00a0practical\u00a0program. It is also\u00a0a\u00a0very researched and well\u00a0renowned\u00a0program\u00a0in Australia,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"14 July 2026 The SANFL\u00a0has launched a Mental Health and Wellbeing Strategy\u00a0that will be rolled out at SANFL…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548948,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-548947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548947\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}