Looking forward, organizations like SAMHI are helping to bring awareness to the mental health struggles of student athletes, but there are still many improvements to be made, says Krista VanSlingerland, a PhD candidate at the University of Ottawa.

 

VanSlingerland says coaches have a big role to play in the well-being of athlete’s mental health.

 

“I think there is a lack of coach education as to how they impact an athlete’s mental health and how they can positively help,” she says.

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PhD candidate Krista VanSlingerland says return-to-play protocols

for mental illness, to athletic departments would be a

great improvement for mental health. (Photo credit: LinkedIn)

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Adding policies about mental health would be a huge step forward too. For example, developing a mental health return-to-play protocol would be useful so there is a procedure in place to follow for when a student is suffering, VanSlingerland says.

 

Right now, VanSlingerland says the national organization U Sports and regional organizations like Ontario University Athletics (OUA) don’t have policies about mental health. She says they have little power to make policy changes at individual universities. She says a summit or greater collaboration going forward could be a possible solution.

 

While Nakisha Slavin is unsure about how much influence the SAMHI Western University campus team will have on policies in the future, she believes the team will have an impact by advocating for student athletes. 

 

“Hopefully we can sort of change the tide within the school and one day create better resources for student athletes at Western,” the SAMHI co-lead says.

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Nakisha Slavin holds a sign from Bell Let's Talk Day. She is optimistic

that SAMHI will have a positive impact for student athletes at Western.

(Photo credit: Western SAMHI Facebook page)

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As for figure skater Denis Margalik, he thinks an important reason why his mental health has been improving is because he competes as a part of a team at Western, rather than as an individual. And Margalik might be onto something - VanSlingerland says there is research that supports the idea that individual sport athletes are more susceptible to depression than team sport athletes.

 

“It’s that social support,” she says. “It’s interesting how a team can be facilitative or debilitative for mental health. It can depend on the [coach].”

 

For Margalik, his team was facilitative for his mental health.

 

“They brought me into their group and taught me how to really love the sport again,” Margalik says.

 

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WATCH: Denis Margalik talks about the differences between

competing as an individual compared to competing as a team. (Video credit: Shannon Coulter, Christina Donati, Paige Martin, Michael Marti and Nick Sokic)

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As someone who is more reserved, Margalik says he had difficulty opening up and he thinks the skating team really helped him overcome that barrier.

 

“They really allowed me to discuss things that I wouldn’t have been able to do the year prior when I was competing by myself and it took a weight off my shoulders,” Margalik says. “We’ve grown up and strengthened with each other and I think that really helped me dig out of that hole that I was digging myself into back when I was alone.”

 

Margalik believes his proudest moment as an athlete is how he changed his perspective on skating. 

 

“From being at the lowest point of my career to then coming to Western and being happier than I’ve ever been. This is the most defining moment in my career because of the obstacles that I had to face,” he says.

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Website created by Shannon Coulter and Michael Marti.

Learn more about the authors here.

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