At Growth Psychology Practice we believe that supporting mental health extends beyond the consulting room. Creating mentally healthy communities also means increasing awareness, reducing stigma and giving people the confidence to recognise when someone may be struggling and start a conversation.
This commitment to community mental health is reflected in the involvement of Sam Lloyd and Kirsty Brislane’s work in the Tackle Your Feelings program, as well as Kirsty’s volunteer work supporting a Beyond Blue Mental Health Match through her local football and netball community.
Tackle Your Feelings: Building Mental Health Awareness Through Community Sport
Sam and Kirsty are presenters for Tackle Your Feelings, a mental health training program designed specifically for community football and netball clubs across Australia.
Delivered by registered psychologists, Tackle Your Feelings aims to provide participants with practical skills to understand mental health, recognise signs of mental ill-health and respond appropriately when someone may be struggling. The program brings mental health education into sporting environments, where strong relationships, teamwork and connection already exist. Community sporting clubs can play an important role in supporting wellbeing.
For Sam and Kirsty, involvement in Tackle Your Feelings provides an opportunity to use their psychological knowledge outside traditional clinical settings and contribute to building stronger and more mentally health-aware sporting communities.
Alongside her professional involvement in mental health, Kirsty has also volunteered her time to promote mental health awareness within her local sporting community by helping organise and host a Beyond Blue Mental Health Match. Beyond Blue’s Mental Health Match initiative encourages sporting clubs across Australia to use the connection and reach of community sport to raise awareness, encourage conversations about mental health and support the work of Beyond Blue.
Why Community Mental Health Matters
Sporting clubs are more than places where people train and compete. They are communities where people experience a sense of identity, connection and belonging. That makes them valuable settings for mental health promotion.
Programs such as Tackle Your Feelings and initiatives such as the Beyond Blue Mental Health Match help bring conversations about mental health into everyday community environments. Through their involvement in Tackle Your Feelings, Sam and Kirsty are proud to contribute their professional skills to strengthening mental health awareness within community sport.
These initiatives align strongly with what we believe at Growth Psychology Practice — that improving mental health requires not only supporting individuals when difficulties arise, but also helping to create communities where people feel connected, supported and comfortable speaking up.