Big day to see things a changin’…
First, awesome new agreement, showing tremendous leadership by the NFL & the NFLPA.
Here is a piece of the announcement by the partners:
“NFL clubs will be required to hire a Behavioral Health Team Clinician. These individuals will be required to be available to players at the facility at least 8-12 hours per week and conduct mandatory educational sessions for coaches and players. The Clinician will also be required to compose a Mental Health Emergency Action Plan for the 2019 season.”
I have already had some DMs with comments about how 50+ man rosters need more than 8-12 hours/wk of time from Clinicians. That may be true, but the fact that the NFL/NFLPA took this step in the right direction, generally, is HUGE.
Teams have doctors/trainers for physical health. Why wouldn’t they have the same for behavioral/MH? Let’s hope this is just the beginning – not just in sports, but all industries.
The pic with this story is of the PGA’s Brooks Koepka on a massive Nike billboard just down the road from MSG, “tripling down” on their own “Crazy” campaign, given how often Brooks has won. It’s nice to see terms that we use in everyday language (formerly thought of as trigger words in a formal sense), used by big brands to “be real” with the public, and open dialogue.
Lots of work to be done, numbers and trends still way out of control, but both of these stories are positive steps.