Sporting Wellness has been founded by 19-year-old Oxford Brookes University undergraduate and cricketeer Callum Lea to promote mental health awareness among sportspeople.
Its website has been launched to signpost support about mental health wellbeing, offer fundraising information and also includes access to a one-to-one support service.
Another key feature of its website is promotion of its sports ambassadors who are helping raise awareness of the charity. This includes Somerset and England Under-19s cricketer Will Smeed, England and Kent cricketer Tammy Beaumont MBE and Bristol Bears rugby player Tyresse Johnson-Fisher.
The website joins the charity’s social media prescence that has already launched, on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Its Instagram page has proved particularly successful, with more than 18,000 followers.
Meanwhile, the charity has also launched a Youtube channel, featuring interviews with Lea and the charity’s ambassadors.
Lea said
“My aim is for the charity to create a network and community in which representative young sports people can be open and honest about their mental health, and have a greater awareness for their peers’ mental health too.
“Both sport related issues and non-sport related issues can easily creep into a young sportspeople’s life, damaging their overall wellbeing and potentially a future career.
“It’s very timely to launch Sporting Wellness in this 2020 Olympic year, and we’re keen to support in every which way we can the new and much needed focus on the importance of positive mental health in sport”.