British Cycling has launched a new Mental Health Strategy to proactively support the mental health and well-being of the Great Britain cycling team.
The new strategy includes the introduction of a concussion policy, a cardiac screening policy, a Clinical Governance Committee, a standard operating procedure for medical incidents whilst training at the HSBC UK National Cycling Centre and standardised illness and injury advice for riders when training and competing away from the HSBC UK National Cycling Centre.
Doctor Nigel Jones, head of medical services for the Great Britain Cycling Team, said: “We took the decision to revise our approach to athlete mental health and well-being based on the acknowledgement that, as an elite sports team, we operate in a high challenge, high support environment.
“Much like we encourage a proactive approach to other areas of health and well-being, such as saddle health or injury prevention, we have applied the same philosophy to proactively managing mental health and well-being in order to try to prevent issues in the future. With support from UK Sport, English Institute of Sport (EIS) and British Cycling’s Clinical Governance Committee, our mental health strategy now focuses on the development of resilient people through a more psychologically informed environment.
“The aim is to move away from the more traditional approach of reactively providing external support to those diagnosed with a mental health ‘disorder’ and to instead shift the focus to a proactive approach of educating our coaches and support staff to allow for better understanding, toleration, containment and ultimately decreasing the prevalence and impact of challenging behaviours and mental distress.
British Cycling launches new mental health strategy – BikeBiz
British Cycling has launched a new Mental Health Strategy to proactively support the mental health and well-being of the Great Britain cycling team. The new strategy includes the introduction of a concussion policy, a cardiac screening policy, a Clinical Governance Committee, a standard operating procedure for medical incidents whilst training at the HSBC UK National… [Read More]