In the middle of the Philadelphia Union game Saturday, a youth soccer team from Upper Darby took the field to play a fast-paced game, a halftime feature of professional soccer games. But once off the field, the players – all under the age of 12 – received an unusual gift: a bag tag with a QR code, leading to a website full of information about mental health.
It’s part of HeadFirst, a new program that the Union Foundation, the team’s charitable arm, is launching to help tackle a growing mental health crisis among young people. As well as hosting the website, the team will run a series of educational workshops aimed at helping young footballers in the region deal with common mental health issues like anxiety and depression. The program will also organize a conference on mental health next spring.
During Saturday’s match, Upper Darby Futbol Club’s young players were invited by their coach to read the website and come to the team’s next training session ready to discuss what they had learned.
“Already they were excited about it – they were talking about anxiety, depression and bullying. One of the kids on the team mentioned that there were bullies at their school – they immediately related it to their experience,” said club board member Julia Quillen.
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It is this enthusiasm that the foundation staff hopes to inspire in dozens of young people over the next six months. Paul Howard, executive director of the foundation, said he and other Union staff were inspired by professional athletes who spoke publicly about their own mental health issues during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There is a growing mental health crisis, exacerbated by the pandemic,” he said. “Fortunately, some prominent athletes have helped destigmatize the debate. By relying on these celebrities, we wanted to do more.
The program is free, funded by Independence Blue Cross, the region’s largest insurer, and developed by researchers at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.
The workshops, the centerpiece of the program, are aimed at 13-15 year olds and take place in three sessions: two in person at Subaru Park, the Chester stadium where the Union play, with a final session on Zoom.
The program’s website also includes information on mental health topics like anxiety, depression and grief, with sections specifically tailored to athletes, their parents and coaches.
“If we meet the kids where they are – on the field, with their coaches, with their parents at home – we can help support the player by giving them (coping) strategies. And we can point out to coaches and caregivers the red flags they should be looking for,” said Jessica Glass Kendorski, a PCOM professor and department chair who helped design the website.
Coping Skills and Mental Health Concepts – Football Focused
Scott Glassman, director of PCOM’s Applied Positive Psychology master’s program, has modified for young athletes his Happier You program, a series of workshops designed to help participants increase their positive thinking to improve their overall well-being . To make it work for HeadFirst, he tried to put mental health concepts into language that a young footballer could relate to.
“For example, the idea of stopping a negative voice, a critical voice, in your mind — we call that blocking, just like a goalie would block your shot,” he said. “Kids think, ‘Oh, I can block that thought, like I’m knocking the ball away from an opponent.'”
Julia Schumacher, a PCOM graduate who led a series of pilot sessions for HeadFirst, said young athletes often operate in high-pressure environments without knowing how to to express thoughts of anxiety or depression.
“I played football from the age of 2 all the way up to the college level, and I’ve never had a program like this. I struggled mentally with performance anxiety and anxiety in general,” she said. Workshops like HeadFirst, she said, can teach athletes how to manage negative thoughts and apply those skills off the field.
Those skills are especially needed after isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Brady Gonsalves, president of UDFC, a nonprofit league with some 450 players. Gonsalves, whose son also plays for the club, has been coaching teams there for five years. After a year away from friends and school, he said, some of his players returned to the field not knowing how to handle social situations, or experiencing severe anxiety or sadness about committing mistakes during a match.
“There are a lot of very emotional reactions and responses from kids that I hadn’t seen before the pandemic,” he said. “It’s hard.”
Goals include broader access for student-athletes
The first workshops will be limited to Delaware County football players, but the foundation hopes to expand the program throughout the Philadelphia area.
Quillen, a UDFC board member, attended a meeting Howard hosted before last Wednesday’s Union game, pitching HeadFirst to Delaware County soccer clubs.
She and other coaches said they are excited to see their students participate and hope the foundation can expand access to more students in the area. At UDFC, Quillen said, a number of athletes speak English as a second language. At Wednesday’s meeting, she asked Howard if the foundation could offer HeadFirst programs in languages other than English.
Although the program is only offered in English for now, Howard said the organization is “very keen” to offer the course in Spanish in the future.
“You can help us refine what we presented to you, so that when we roll it out to all five counties, we have an even better version,” he said.
