Lorraine Lafrenière, CEO of the Coaching Association of Canada, visited Whitehorse in early April to conduct coaching workshops.

The purpose of the workshops was to conduct Learning Facilitator training and educational sessions for local coaches in order to help create safe, happy environments for local sports participants at all levels.

Lafrenière said it's really about mental health literacy. She pointed out that communities that are smaller, disadvantaged, racialized or Indigenous really don't have access to all the mental health supports that are needed to help everyone get through the recovery from COVID-19.

"We've been very intentional about reaching out to those types of communities where we can engage with individuals to help improve mental health literacy. And for coaches and for athletes and participants.

"The program is really about changing the National Coaching Certification Program."

Lafrenière said the goal of the curriculum is to introduce more mental health literacy in training for their coaches.

She said the other piece is the Mental Health Resource Hub.

"That's a shareware evidence-based tools, templates and training to help coaches or the general population access tools because we know that teens and adolescents and kids, probably close to almost 50 per cent, have had some mental health stress, anxiety impact through the pandemic and so we know people are returning to sport which is great."

Lafrenière added, "We really just want to make the mental health conversation more normalized and equip coaches, to take care of participants and also to be self-aware and take care of themselves as people return to physical activity and sport.

"The wave is coming. We can see the cracks in the school system and with young people. And sport really is that avenue to help people return to holistic well-being."

Lafrenière explained how coaches can benefit from the workshops.

"It's helping them understand how to intervene if – it's helping take care of themselves as well. We know that coaching and volunteer coaching, which is like 90 per cent of our population of coaches – sometimes it can be stressful and they have some limited training to support them. And so we just want to give them more tools to be effective and basically have their own quality sport experience."

Lafrenière said the Mental Health and Sport project has three prongs.

"The first one is adapting curriculum to include more mental health. The second one is the mental health and sport hub. So that's that big shareware where we are bringing mental health experts and resources and tips and training and tools together on https://coach.ca.

"The third component is a significant campaign to get out into communities to help normalize that conversation."

The Public Health Agency of Canada funded the initiative over the next two years, based on the priority of Canadians' well-being. It also focuses on individuals who would have been more impacted by COVID.

"It's a real emphasis over this next two years to really prioritize the wellbeing of Canadians through sport and recreation," related Lafrenière.

She said the first step is for coaches to understand what mental health and illness is.

"The first section of that is actually really about training. They really do have to understand themselves," said Lafrenière. "While participants are there and coaches are coaching the participants, they have to think about their own physical activity and their own fitness and their own well-being and what parameters they need around their schedule to be successful in juggling work life, family and volunteer responsibilities."

Coaches are seen as role models for athletes.

"Absolutely," agreed Lafrenière. "The coach is the trusted person and we really are just trying to invest in helping those coaches understand that sometimes kids don't have the right resources in front of them to understand what's going on with them. And often the coach is that trusted person in the gym or on the pitch or in the clubhouse, and it's the ability to help guide that young person with the right tips and tools and conversations and direct them to the right resources.

"We're not looking for coaches to be experts. We're simply trying to equip them with the right amount of knowledge so that they can support kids across the country, and themselves."

Lafrenière said resources available to help coaches and their athletes include the Mental Health Resource Hub.

Information there includes what eating disorders look like, how to deal with behavioural stress in young people through training and competition and how to equip them to understand good stress and deal with what they need. Another component for coaches is mental performance consulting.

Coaches can "access a resource that just helps them to understand the context and the approach and gives them some guidance along the way," said Lafrenière.

When asked how coaching differs in remote or isolated communities, Lafrenière replied, "I've been to every province in every territory in the country on the topic of safe sport previously, and we just know that they don't have the resources that big city centres can have," said Lafrenière. "Maybe they don't have the personnel or the expertise. And so we saw that even through COVID.

"So it's really just trying to customize it to what those disadvantaged communities don't have and how we can help them. And this is very specific to return to sport participation and COVID.

"We've got two key training principles, training modules that are part of this, and one is return to sport. So that's really about how to return to sport in a safe way after COVID and the psychological safety, and then the other one is on the mental health and well-being."

Lafrenière agreed that Whitehorse is better equipped with resources than other northern communities.

"I absolutely appreciate the diversity of resources available, but every community is and will continue to deal with the side effects of COVID. Because community coaching is our number one we really want to reach community coaches."

For more information, contact the Coaching Association of Canada at 613-235-5000.

The Mental Health Resource Hub can be found at https://coach.ca/mental-health-hub