NEWMARKET’S Carol O’Leary is a facilitator with Movember Ahead of the Game, an emotional literacy programme designed for delivery in a sports club setting. Carol, a dual star for club and county, explained her role.
“Last year we began this campaign, Movember, the GPA and the GAA came together and decided that they would roll this out across grassroots clubs across Ireland to reach as many young people as possible,” she said.
“I work as a facilitator and I’m based in Munster, I go around to different counties and give talks to groups of kids, it could be anything from 13-16 year olds, boys or girls.
“I work with another facilitator, we go and give them a talk to try and help them understand about their mental health, looking at different signs they may need to act on and what to do if they are concerned about something.
“After that we talk to parents or coaches or any adults in the club who want to sit in on it. That’s my role.
“I was in two clubs in Clare this year, I was in Éire Óg and Parteen/Meelick, I was based in Tipperary and Limerick a lot other than that.
“It’s a great initiative, it’s great to see it rolled out across the 32 counties. We started in November and it has been hugely successful so far.”
She said that Movember are running the programme in other countries also.
“Movember is the charity that deals with men’s health issues, people would know that a lot of the time men grow the moustache to raise money for Movember,” she said.
“The main things that are health risks for men are testicular cancer and prostate cancer, and then after that it was suicide. That led to them rolling out this campaign.
“It’s ran out with the AFL in Australia and Rugby League in the UK.The GAA is in every parish in the country and it’s a great utility to be able to reach so many people,” she said.
She says that the idea is to get young people to relax before providing them with important and useful information.
“They have done loads and loads of research and for getting through to adolescents, it’s good to take them out of the classroom setting. It’s a bit of craic, a bit of fun, we get them up playing games, doing different activities, they’re challenging each other, doing little games at the start which puts them at ease,” she said.
“We usually start off with pictures of different sports stars, we ask them to name them, we ask them what they have in common and they’ll usually say they’re at top of their game, they’re playing for Ireland or they are All Ireland champions. Then we’ll say yeah, and they have all spoken openly about challenges with their mental health. I suppose that is to start the conversation and show this is something that affects everyone.”
Facilitators explain to the young people that mental health isn’t fixed, and that certain challenges are inevitable in life.
“Mental health is on a continuum, it changes daily, it changes weekly, depending on what is happening in your life. You’ll definitely face challenges and we try to equip them to realise what to do when they are facing challenges, so it doesn’t get worse. We always compare it to a physical injury, because we’re in that sports setting, so if you get an injury and you keep playing, it’s going to get worse, whereas it’s better to tend to it early. That’s what we’re trying to instill in them,” she said.
Parked for the summer months, it will return soon and she would like to see more Clare clubs get involved.
“It’ll be starting back in September and the idea is to further that reach again. This year I think we were in 176 clubs and over 5,000 people were at our workshops,” she said.
“We want to keep that up and go again. I’d love to see more Clare clubs getting involved and being reached, there is huge uptake in some other counties.
“Definitely it’s something we want to keep going forward with, they are taking on more facilitators and that’s to keep up with the demand. It’s great to see that clubs do want to get involved and it’ll run again from September until April.”
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked with a number of other publications in Limerick, Cork and Galway. His first book will be published in December 2024.