Athletes Connected was featured on USA Today College in a story that studies how few student-athletes seek help with their mental illness. U-M athletic counselor Emily Klueh was quoted to provide context on how different approaches are needed to work with student-athletes. Below is an excerpt from the story, which is the second piece in a two-part series.

By Haley Velasco

As a high school student in Rhode Island, Katie Morin swam the 500- and 1000-meter freestyle alongside elite athletes, including three-time Olympian Elizabeth Beisel. As she became more serious about swimming, she met with a sports psychologist, a general psychologist and a psychiatrist, and began taking anxiety medicine.

“It is pretty common in an individual sport where you compete against yourself, or the clock, to put immense amounts of pressure on yourself,” Morin said.

During college recruitment, she evaluated mental health resources at prospective schools along with the caliber of academics and the strength of their swim programs. Upon choosing Cornell University, she immediately made an appointment with a counselor at the general health center, who helped her schedule sessions all four years.

“The ease and anonymity of the entire process made me want to [seek] services,” Morin said.

“It’s a benefit to have people who understand that population and who work with them in a different way,”
— Emily Klueh

Unlike Morin, most college athletes who have mental health do not seek help, according to Daniel Eisenberg, an associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, who surveyed student-athletes before and after they participated in educational presentations to all 31 athletic teams at the university. He says that 33% of all college students experience significant symptoms of depression, anxiety or other mental health conditions. Among that group, 30% seek help. But of college athletes with mental health conditions, only 10% do.

“They are student-athletes, and they come with the same baggage that other students have,” says Christopher Miles, assistant professor of family and community medicine and biomedical engineering at Wake Forest University. “They just have a lot more stressors because of their expectations, their time commitments.”

Margot Putukian, director of athletic medicine and assistant director of medical services at Princeton University, said non-athletes are “not under the microscope” in the same way.

“They might not have as many stressors,” Putukian said. “They may not have performance issues and those stressors that athletes do.”

Some student-athletes hide their mental health issues and don’t appear to their loved ones to be at risk of suicide, like 19-year-old Jordan Hankins, a basketball player at Northwestern University, who hanged herself in her dorm room in January. Others, like Madison Holleran, display warning signs: On Jan. 17, 2014, Holleran, a University of Pennsylvania freshman and a member of the track and field team, jumped off the top of a parking garage to her death. After her death, friends and family said she had seemed to be struggling.

Overall, out of about 500,000 student-athletes who compete annually in NCAA sports, 477 died from suicide between 2003-2013, according to a University of Washington study analyzing athlete deaths.

Providing mental health services to student-athletes

Many student-athletes who find it difficult to ask for help or access services are more inclined to seek support in the comfortable setting of athletic training facilities, according to Emily B. Klueh, athletic counselor at the University of Michigan.

“It’s a benefit to have people who understand that population and who work with them in a different way,” said Klueh, who is program coordinator of Athletes Connected, a university program to bring awareness to and support student-athlete mental health.

Read the rest of the story on USA Today College.

Athletes Connected was featured on SwimSwam.com in a story that explains how the program is breaking through barriers of stigma and raising awareness of mental wellness.

By Jeff Grace

Have you ever struggled to find the motivation to do the things you love? Have you ever found yourself withdrawing from social contact? Worrying excessively?

Many of us have. These are some of the signs and symptoms that signal you may need to talk to someone that can provide you with support.

When you feel shoulder pain during a training session most often you will seek treatment from a doctor or a physiotherapist. When people, especially athletes, experience the feelings described above many are reluctant to seek out treatment for their mental wellness in the same way they would their physical health.

In a research study conducted in 2014 it was found that intercollegiate athletes who suffered from depression and anxiety are far less likely to utilize mental health services compared to the general student population.

Athletes Connected, a mental wellness program at the University of Michigan, was created to provide athletes with support, coping skills and breakdown stigma surrounding mental health so that athletes would be more likely to address their mental wellness.

Athletes Connected was created in 2014 and is a collaborative, multi-faceted program developed by the U-M School of Public Health, Depression Center, and Athletic Department to increase awareness of mental health issues, reduce stigma, and promote coping skills among student athletes. The program features four key elements:

• Brief, engaging videos to reduce stigma, encourage help-seeking and promote coping skills;
• Informational presentations for all coaches and athletes;
• Informal, drop-in support groups offered on a bi-weekly basis, designed to specifically address the unique concerns of student athletes.
• Conducts research to better understand the student athlete population and mental health as well as sport performance.

*Program information taken from the 2014 NCAA Innovations Grant Final Report University of Michigan Developing and Evaluating a Model Program for Supporting the Mental Health of Student Athletes.

As a swimmer Emily Klueh won the 1650 at the 2008 NCAA Championships, took a bronze in the 10 km at the 2010 Pan Pacific Championships and in 2013 was the overall winner of the FINA Open Water World Cup. Klueh is now a clinical athletic counselor and the program coordinator of Athletes Connected.

One of the main reasons Klueh became so involved in the area of mental health is because her own challenges, “I think a lot of people struggle with mental health,” says Klueh. “I know that was a driving factor for me getting into the field.”

“I think that there are a lot of people who have experienced things in their life where coping skills have been beneficial. For me, I know have the education, training, and license in order to accurately work with student athletes wherever they fall on the continuum of wellbeing. ”

Read the rest of the story on SwimSwam.