Criteria for Eligible Resources

About the Hub

As participants return to sport across Canada, coaches have a vital role to play. Their influence, observation, and personal connection in working with sport participants, place them in a critical role to support those who are experiencing low mental health as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. While well positioned to help the children and youth they are coaching in dealing with mental health issues, many coaches do not feel they have the knowledge or confidence to do so.

Mental health has been identified by federal, provincial, and territorial (FPT) governments as the greatest risk to Canadians as a result of COVID 19. The COVID 19 pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on youth mental health and is particularly associated with depression and anxiety (Nearchou et al., 2020). Evidence has shown that between 40-48% of children and adolescents have been shown to have mental health issues during the pandemic (Liang et al., 2020) (Wang et al., 2020).

Powered through our partnership of over 500 sport organizations at all levels across Canada, the Coaching Association of Canada is uniquely placed through their network, capacity, and expertise, to enhance and deliver mental health awareness and literacy training. The project will engage hundreds of thousands of citizens in the communities in which they live, including: coaches, teachers, and community sport leaders; the children, youth and adults they coach, teach and lead; and the wider community in which they live. The project will specifically focus on reaching those disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, including: remote communities, Indigenous communities, newcomers to Canada, socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, and Canadian Armed Forces families.

Criteria of Eligible Resources

The Coaching Association of Canada (CAC) is launching an online national hub of mental health resources! The Hub will be a powerhouse of rich content, information, research, data, infographics and videos, hosted on the CAC’s website, coach.ca. The goal is to empower and equip coaches with educational resources to support their mental health literacy, both with a focus on self-care and supporting their sport participants.

As we take another step to support the coaches and sport participants in Canada, we are seeking resources from individuals and organizations to contribute to the hub of mental health resources.

All resources submitted to the Hub must meet the following criteria:

• Resource must be on the subject of: mental health, mental illness, mental performance, impact of COVID-19 on mental health, impact of racism and/or oppression on mental health, mental health and returning to sport (following COVID, injury, illness, etc.), or other topics that the project team and task force deem to be relevant and valuable to the target audiences
• Resource must be relevant to one or more of the following primary or secondary audiences:
  • Primary Audiences:
    • Coaches in remote communities
    • Coaches in Indigenous communities (when and where welcomed)
    • Coaches in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities
    • Coaches in communities of New Canadians or newcomers to Canada
    • Coaches in schools
    • Coaches in the Canadian Armed Forces Morale and Welfare Services
  • Secondary Audience:
    • Children, youth and adults who participate in sports across the country, under the supervision of trained coaches
• Resource must be published by an accredited organization or mental health professional
• Resource must be research-based (for example: Government-funded study, PhD study, approved dissertation, thesis, etc.)
• Resource must be publicly available, easily accessible (for example: public-facing web page) and free for all audiences
• Resource must be available in one of Canada’s official languages, English or French
  • If the resource is unilingual, the CAC may require consent to translate the resource into the other official language
• Resource must be accessible in one of the following formats:
  • Video
  • Infographic
  • Directory (For example: Help lines, websites of organizations)
  • Research Paper – (Please include summary)
  • Whitepaper
  • Blog Post
  • E-Book
  • Presentation
  • Report
  • Other, as deemed appropriate

Please note all contributed resources will be attributed to the organization and the source on the Hub. If a resource is only available in one official language (English or French), the CAC may cover the cost of translating the resource in order for it to be published on the Hub.

Submission Process

Resources can be submitted through our Call for Resources form. Please note that only one resource should be submitted per form. If you would like to submit multiple resources, please complete separate forms for each individual resource. The CAC team will be reviewing all submissions to determine their eligibility, including their relevancy for the target audience. Following our vetting process, we will notify successful applicants on the inclusion of their resource on the Hub.

Should you have any questions about the project, resource criteria, vetting process or the submission form, please contact:

Arushi Phillips, mentalhealth@coach.ca
Manager, Communications and Public Relations, Special Projects
Coaching Association of Canada