Boston, MA – America East announced the University of Vermont as the winner of their MindWise on Campus Competition on Wednesday. Over 100 student-athletes from UVM participated in the competition.
In year two of America East’s partnership with MindWise Innovations, America East hosted a mental health contest using the online training tool, MindWise on Campus (MWoC) to promote, engage, and educate student-athletes on suicide awareness and prevention within their peer groups. Through this course, student-athletes learned: how to recognize signs of suicide risk in themselves or a friend, how to have a difficult conversation that encourages someone to seek help, and how to build strong peer connections that foster positive mental well-being. It utilizes video and interactive learning to teach student-athletes how to Acknowledge, Care and Tell (ACT) if they are worried about themselves or a friend. The MWoC course uses real and diverse stories of mental health struggles and recovery to provide students with resources and actionable steps to support themselves and their peers.
America East encouraged all student-athletes of their member institutions to complete MWoC. As an incentive to motivate student athletes to complete MindWise on Campus, America East held a conference-wide competition to determine which institution could attain the highest student-athlete completion rate of the online training. The competition ran from Thursday, February 1 until Thursday, March 28.
“Vermont student-athletes were among the first in the NCAA to begin work on destigmatizing mental health struggles. This award recognizes that our student athletes remain leaders on this critical issue,” said UVM’s Director of Athletics, Jeff Schulman. “A big thank you to our SAAC leadership and our amazing staff at Catamount Sport Psychology and Counseling (CSPC) for championing our MindWise partnership and to the America East Board of Directors for their support of mental health education in our conference.”
America East has proven to be a leader in emphasizing mental health, wellness and safety. The America East Board of Presidents approved a significant financial investment for this mental health education initiative in June. In 2018, America East and its Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) took the next step towards destigmatizing mental health through the establishment of its #BetterTogether campaign. The initiative focuses on creating more mentally healthy environments for student-athletes across all nine America East campuses through education, outreach, events and more.
In 2019, America East became the first non-autonomy conference to adopt an NCAA proposal that mandated each institution make mental health services and resources available to its student-athletes through the department of athletics and/or the institution's health services or counseling services department. America East has hosted annual Mental Health workshops since 2019.
About MindWise Innovations
With the goal of shaping the current and future state of behavioral health for the better, MindWise Innovations provides evidence-based mental health and substance use services such as educational programs, training, consultation, and crisis response for schools, organizations, and mental health professionals. Headquartered in Dedham, Massachusetts, MindWise is powered by Riverside Community Care, a non-profit leader in behavioral health and human services.
About America East
Founded in 1979, the America East Conference is an elite NCAA Division I athletic conference that fosters an environment for student-athletes to become champions. Comprised of academically renowned, like-minded member institutions located in the Northeast region of the United States, America East is committed to broad-based excellence and progressive in its approach to supporting its more than 3,500 student-athletes across 18 sponsored sports. For more information, visit www.AmericaEast.com and follow the America East Conference and its social media channels, @AmericaEast.
- America East Conference – Where Champions Rise -