Craig Ranson joins Mental Health in Sport Digital Conference
The English Institute of Sport (EIS)’s Director of Athlete Health Craig Ranson will speak at the Westminster Insights Mental Health in Sport Digital Conference alongside speakers such former Premier League footballer Clarke Carlisle and the CEO of Mind, Paul Farmer.
Participation in sport can help to promote positive mental health; however, the impact of COVID-19 has reduced access and opportunities at grassroots level. Elite athletes have faced unique challenges throughout the pandemic, taking part in competition whilst living in isolation and facing increased online harassment.
The conference will explore how to build inclusive and supportive sports communities for athletes at all levels, that promote positive mental wellbeing and improve quality of life.
Other speakers include Simon Mason, Head of Sport Strategy at the Department for Media, Culture and Sport, Hannah Crane, Director of People and Partnerships at the Street Games and Michael Salla, Director of Health and Sport at Everton in the Community.
Director of Athlete Health at the EIS Craig Ranson said: “Mental health is a significant factor at every stage of a sport person’s career and our role is to provide expert support, advice and education, both directly to athletes, and to the entire high-performance community.
“Our Mental Health Team was formed in 2018 and we are proud that since then, we have delivered mental health awareness training to more than 750 people across the system, as well as training up 150 Mental Health Champions to date. Put simply, we want to increase people’s understanding of mental health, their confidence to talk about it and their awareness of the available support.
“Looking ahead, during the Paris cycle we will expand accessibility to our mental health awareness training via multi-media courses and by further tailoring them to individual sport environments. We will also augment our provision by doubling the number of Mental Health Champions, and introducing EIS Mental Health Leads to enable integration of mental health expertise for sport support teams.”
The half-day briefing will be broadcast live on Friday 17 September on Westminster Insight’s interactive digital platform. Follow @WMinsightUK for updates on this conference.