Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 12 No. 3 | January 2020

12 Inside Hokie Sports P erhaps a great indication of the changing perception of mental health issues occurred this spring on the Virginia Tech campus when a group of Tech student-athletes approached staff members within the Office of Student-Athlete Development. Wanting to have a dialogue about mental health with other Tech student-athletes in a group-like setting, this small cluster of student-athletes asked Natalie Forbes, senior director of student-athlete personal development, how to go about developing something like this. Forbes was excited at the student-athletes’ proactive nature, and more importantly, their courage to tackle a sensitive topic. These initial conversations led to the formation of “THRIVE”—a program designed to let student-athletes not only survive, but thrive, regardless of where they resided on the mental health spectrum. “Creating an event that encourages student-athletes to be vulnerable and talk about the struggles they face with other athletes just like them allows them to understand the things they face are not uncommon and that many of the people they look up to were once in their shoes,” Tech senior track and field athlete Kanajzae Brown said. The foundation of the program is the student-athletes. ForbesmetwithLauren Naldo, a counseling and athletic mental performance staff counselor within the Virginia Tech Athletics Department, and they helped form a focus group of 10 student-athletes, meeting with them to get feedback on topics to be discussed and how to structure events. They then decided to create a THRIVE ambassadors group, which consists of one student-athlete from each of the Hokies’ 22 varsity sports. Together, with occasional guidance from Forbes and Naldo, this group planned THRIVE programming, selecting topics, dates, giveaways, food, and promotion of the events. “Lauren and I felt it was vital to have the THRIVE ambassadors play a major role in the planning,” Forbes said. “They can provide input and feedback not only on mental health topics that are most affecting their peers, but also the best messaging and how to approach the event in a way that the student-athletes would respond to.” Thegrouphasheld twoworkshops this fall, both for freshman student-athletes. The rationale for focusing on freshmen first made sense—the transition from high school to college is often difficult for freshmen, as they attempt to balance the demands of academics and athletics. In some cases, that transition can be overwhelming. The first THRIVE workshop took place Oct. 14, and was for female freshman student-athletes, with female THRIVE ambassadors serving as the hosts. The group heard from senior women’s swimmer Hannah Wilding and former women’s swimmer MJ Ulrich, both of whom have been public about their mental health struggles, especially related to trying to be perfect academically and athletically. The ambassadors encouraged discussions in small groups by relating their own struggles and how they coped. There were activities to encourage TECH student-athletes tackling mental health challenges A group of student-athletes worked with the Office of Student-Athlete Development to create THRIVE, an initiative designed to help student-athletes thrive regardless of where they are on the mental health spectrum by Jimmy Robertson