‘Keeping an eye on each other’ the goal of mental health initiative
Getting normalization message to youth is vital, says sports-medicine doctor
A team’s dressing room is its safe space.
It’s a place, Dr. Stu Gershman says, where young athletes should know that it’s OK for them to speak up about challenges they’re facing, be it a sprained ankle or a struggle with their own mental health. “We’re all susceptible,” he says. “At most, one in five youth are diagnosed and treated because of the stigma. Players want to know their coaches care about them. We learned last year that we struck a nerve with coaches, parents and kids, so we were on to something.”
Gershman, a Victoria sports-medicine doctor, is the founder of Buddy Check for Jesse, a mental health initiative focused on engaging with youth hockey teams across B.C.
Gershman’s son Jesse, an avid golfer who was working for Google in California, took his own life five years ago at age 22.
In his youth, he had been bullied for being a “brainiac” and lived with obsessive-compulsive disorder.
“Having a high IQ does not spare you from challenges in coping with daily life or grant you an automatic pass to a happy and peaceful life,” Gershman says on the Buddy Check website.
Last year, after reflecting on his own experiences as a youth sports coach, Gershman launched the charity to encourage youth sports coaches to discuss mental health awareness with their young players, to encourage them to look out for each other, to push back against any stigma they might perceive that is holding them back from helping a friend or speaking out about their own struggles.
“Fifty per cent of all mental health illnesses start before 14, 70 per cent start before 18,” Gershman said on the weekend, when more than 1,000 B.C. youth hockey teams were encouraged to talk about the Buddy Check program.
With the backing of B.C. Hockey, mental health kits, featuring green hockey tape, green wrist bands for the players and other teaching materials for the coaches — green is the colour of mental health awareness — were distributed to teams.
Every team in the 11-to-14 age bracket received a kit. Teams from age nine to 20 also participated, with many of the program’s resources available for free on the BCFJ website.
“The goal is to have coaches pass on a mental health de-stigmatization/normalization message to youth in the dressing room, to create an environment where our everyone feels they can support each other,” he said.
“Youth is a target group, partly because they’re the group that’s going to make the changes for the rest of us, and they’re also sponges for change.”
“This year already we’re learning that as it expands we’re planting seeds all over the place. There’s a lot of need out there.”
While Jesse golfed, his younger brothers Max and Zak were hockey players.
After Jesse’s death, his dad decided to give what became known as “the green-tape talk.” The boys on his sons’ teams taped their sticks with green tape in tribute to Jesse. The next season, the boys asked if they would be honouring Jesse again, if Stu would again talk about who Jesse was and what happened to him.
“They asked me, ‘Dad, are you going to do the green-tape talk again this year?’ ” Gershman recalled. “It’s not some deep, dark discussion, it’s not about me … eventually it got to the point, this is pretty important stuff. How do we help them in their life?”
His own experience guided his thinking in how this might become a bigger project.
“The dressing room is a special place, I thought. Other coaches can do this.”
The message is to be supportive of each other, that they’re not alone. And it isn’t about suicide, he stressed.
“It’s about just keeping an eye on each other. If we look out for one another, we can make a difference for each other. There’s a lot of need out there.”
Youth is a target group, partly because they’re the group that’s going to make the changes for the rest of us.