Dunbar United Colts 2005’s have announced that they will be teaming up with Sporting Wellness for the 2019/20 season.
Sporting Wellness are a non-profit organisation, awaiting confirmation of charitable status, that aims to raising, awareness of mental health issues young people may suffer through sport, and provide help and advice for them to help manage their mental health locally.
For the following season Dunbar United Colts 2005’s will have Sporting Wellness as their shirt sponsors on their home and away kits.
This has been made possible by The Royal Bank of Scotland, who have donated £2,000 to pay for the team’s new season strips, printing costs for the team’s age group and also funding for mental health first aid courses at the football club, as a whole.
Dunbar United Colts released a statement on what they hope to achieve as part of the new partnership.
“Throughout sport, young people commonly experience pressure by parents, players & their peers to succeed. From balancing day to day school work with their sporting commitments, to sometimes difficult relationships with peers & family, which can all be extremely challenging for young people. Now with the introduction of social media, this has intensified 10 fold, having 24/7 exposure to positive and negative media streams, and not giving young people any opportunity for mental ‘down time’.
“The harsh reality is that sport, and football in particular, is an environment that can very often be one which players are told to ‘toughen up’; without knowing the impacts it can have on some of these young payers, who can be very vulnerable to such pressures.
“When standing on a touchline watching your son or daughter play, how often have you seen an opposition coach shout & scream at their players. How does this effect the player? Your son or daughter wants to play the sport they love, without having the pressure of knowing they will be shouted at for making mistakes. How does that effect them on a daily basis? How often is this accepted as part of developing young people in the sport you love?
“We will work together and make a difference by raising, awareness of mental health issues young people may suffer through sport, and provide help and advice for them to help manage their mental health locally and as widely as we can in as ,many of the following ways as we can:-
Raising awareness of mental health for young sports people. This will be done through marketing on social media and their website, which is work in progress.
Funding education and qualifications. We will seek to fund the education of coaches, staff, parents and players on mental health through working with trained specialist to undertake formal training. Sporting Wellness will seek to fund and facilitate an individual from a sporting institution, to become a mental health first aider. This will give them formal qualification and be invaluable in helping them recognise symptoms of mental health issues and how to handle them effectively.
Providing and funding direct, for one to one support. Any young person in sport, with a mental health issue, will have the opportunity to be offered one to one support with a trained professional. Sporting Wellness have a goal to have a ‘menu’ of trained psychiatrists and psychologists who are onboard with Sporting Wellness and who offer their services. Their aim is to eventually acquire the support of around 20 or so professionals to ensure we don’t encounter any geographic issues.
“As a group of Dunbar United Colts club officials, we have chosen to partner with, and promote, Sporting Wellness as out shirt sponsor, because we passionately want to help them work with young people in the community in a vital area, so personally close to our hearts.”
Callum Lea, the founder of Sporting Wellness said:
“Sporting Wellness is very proud to be teaming up with Dunbar United Colts 2005’s and to have our logo on their kit for 2019/2020.
“When we heard that they were keen to support the cause of mental health in young sports people, we were extremely excited and could tell straight away that Dunbar was exactly the sort of sporting organisation that we wanted to associate ourselves with, as a non-profit organisation.
“Sporting Wellness was founded with the idea to spread positive mental health in youth sport and to try and put what really matters when our young sportspeople are competing, into context. We cannot thank Dunbar United Colts 2005’s for helping us spread our message and will be backing them all the way, throughout their season!!”