SPO301 Health and Advocacy Strategies: Troopers Foundation Report

This report introduces the Troopers Be The Mate You Need Foundation, established to address mental health issues among Australian athletes. The foundation aims to combat the societal pressures and expectations that contribute to mental disorders in athletes, who are often viewed as role models and, consequently, neglected. The report outlines the foundation's mission to develop and implement advanced programs for athletes and the general public, focusing on personalized approaches to address diverse mental health challenges. Key objectives include eradicating mental health stigmatization through social communication platforms, implementing flexible prevention programs, offering free mental health assessments, establishing rehabilitation centers, creating educational facilities with real-life survivor interactions, and gaining approval from major sporting institutions. The foundation plans to implement programs such as psychoeducation to educate clients and families on preventive measures and wilderness therapy for diagnosing and treating emotional and mental disorders.

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HEALTH AND ADVOCACY STRATEGIES
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Executive summary
The society has imposed too many expectations on the Australian athletes that sometimes
cannot be achieved. In other occasions, these athletes are termed and viewed as the society’s role
models who should lead by example. However, such actions may lead to the mental disorders in
these athletes. Since they are viewed as role models, they are usually neglected by society. It is
for this reason that our Troopers Be The Mate You Need Foundation has come to life. Through
the foundation, we are aiming at helping these professional athletes prevent and recover from
such mental disorders. Our primary clients are the professional athletes but we can extend our
services to the general community if a need arises. We have laid out several objectives and/or
goals that will enable us to achieve our mission. These objectives include the eradication of
mental health stigmatization, installation of preventive programs, and offering free mental health
assessment. Other objectives include the installation of extra rehabilitation centers, implementing
educational facilities, and attaining the approval of major Australian sporting bodies. We are
aiming at becoming the best mental health foundation through the utilization of these objectives
and free mental health assessment processes.

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Table of Contents
Executive summary.........................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
The foundation’s name....................................................................................................................4
The foundation’s background......................................................................................................4
Why we exist................................................................................................................................5
The mission of the foundation..................................................................................................5
The goals of the foundation......................................................................................................6
The clients and the associates......................................................................................................8
The implemented programs.........................................................................................................9
The psychoeducation program.................................................................................................9
The wilderness therapy program..............................................................................................9
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Many athletes face diverse mental issues including stress, depression, panic disorder, and
mental health problems among others (Batterham et al. 2015, p. 258). These problems arise
because of the expectations that their managers, fans, and family have on them in cases they fail
to meet them. It is for this reason that our foundation comes into life with the aim of helping
these athletes deal with these issues effectively. The foundation has its best objectives and
programs laid out that aid us in the direction that we are aiming to achieve.
The foundation’s name
In order to meet the Australian context, we had to come with a name that is common and
fits every member of the society. The particular name of the foundation is the Troopers Be the
Mate You Need.
The foundation’s background
The name Troopers comes from the Australian phrase that perfectly describes the person
who has endured a lot of hardships and strains so as to achieve the ambition they have. This term
is commonly used within our Australian jurisdiction. Such people have a determination, hope,
are strong, and brave due to the way their journey has shaped their lives. On the hand, the term
mate has been used in the name description of the foundation. According to the Australian
context, a mate is a phrase popularly known among the males to be loyalty or friendship that
people have among one another.
The Troopers Foundation is formed with the basic aim of promoting the consciousness of
the mental difficulties that the general public and athletes, in particular, go through. As indicated

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earlier, the foundation has several goals and objectives that it aims at meeting in the future.
However, these goals can only be met if the relevant bodies are involved in advocating the
relevant changes. The primary options that we aim at achieving after the foundation has set its
cause include the provision of the opportunity to seek help, guidance, and personal aid to our
customers. Since the public, family, and managers of the athletes impose too many expectations
from these athletes, they end up suffering from mental disorders that kill them from the inside
(Bauman 2016). It is for this fact that our foundation comes into light in the attempt of helping
these persons from the social stigmatization. We aim at being the mate the athletes will ever
want to seek help from when circumstances and/or situations force them to.
Why we exist
As described in the above section, we simply exist to aid the athletes and the general
public, if need be, with the ways of solving the mental difficulties that they face in their lives.
More so, this fact can be elaborated in the sections below.
The mission of the foundation
We have set out a mission of developing and implanting useful and advanced programs
that aim at aiding those individuals that face mental disorders. Even though the primary
customers that we are targeting are the professional athletes, we also extend our services to the
general public. These programs may differ from one client to another as different people have
different issues that they find challenging. Thus, we are pointing at the mark of personalizing
these programs according to the wants of the clients and the challenges they are facing. As we
are aiming at including the sporting bodies in our daily operations, we aim at being the best
foundation to be celebrated in the near future for its efficient aid to diverse people.

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The goals of the foundation
We do have a lot of objectives at the back of our minds that guide the services that we
aim at delivering. These goals include the following as described below.
To start with, we are aiming at doing away with the social stigmatization that these
athletes face when they fail to achieve the expectations that the public has from them. This
objective will be achieved by the creation of the social communication platforms that promote
conversation with our clients when they are in need. In addition, these social platforms will aid
us in the creation of the awareness of the mental difficulties that these clients, and the general
public, face. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), communicating with the
mentally affected clients makes them feel as they are not alone in the suffering. Thus, talking
about these mental disorders openly helps the athletes express their challenges (World Health
Organization 2014, p. 13) resulting in us providing them with better solutions.
Secondly, we are aiming at the proper implementation of the flexible and effective
prevention programs for our clients. There are many courses of mental disorders such as failure,
injury, and emotional problems. The athletes face a lot of these causes in their daily training and
mixing with other people. This is evident in the research that was conducted in Australia
involving 224 elite athletes where 118 were females and the remaining 106 were men. The result
indicated that 46.4% of these athletes faced one or another mental health problem (Amelia et al.
2015). However, the levels of mental disorders in the athletes were found to be in
correspondence with that of the community. It is for this reason that we aim at projecting the
Troopers Foundation to aid the athletes to recover from these disorders through the various
mechanism (Lehr et al. 2016).

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The third objective that we are aiming to achieve is to offer free of charge health
assessment programs for these athletes either through face-to-face conversations or online chats
(Areán, Ly & Andersson 2016). The reason why we are making it free is to attract to those who
are suffering as some of these clients are very keen on where their funds go to. Thus, having no
funds to waste, the clients will eventually find their way to seeking these services (Slade et al.
2014) as their professional sports’ associations will be included in the process.
The fourth objective that the foundation will be aiming to achieve is the installation of
extra rehabilitation sessions for our clients. These clients will be given a chance to communicate
with a professional mental doctor (Barr et al. 2016) if they are facing a sanction for professional
misconduct. The advantage of allowing them to face professional doctors is that they will always
have the chance to be assessed accordingly (Meyer et al. 2015). Thus, they will never have any
cases of a low quality mental service being offered to them.
The fifth objective that the foundation has is to issue an educational facility where real
life mental disorder survivors will meet with the athletes. The best part of this goal is that the
athletes will have a real-life sample of how to live without such disorders (Mohammed et al.
2015). These survivors may offer them tips on how to live a mental disorder free life and how to
overcome their current issues (Weiss et al. 2016).
Finally, our foundation aims at gaining the approval of the major sporting institutions in
the attempt to cooperate with them over a long period of time. This action will not only allow us
to prosper but also reach every athlete that needs any kind of assistance with their mental
challenges. The approval of such partnership will, in addition, grant us a chance to promote the

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ways of preventing the causes of mental disorders to the athletes and the community as a whole
(Williamson et al. 2016).
The clients and the associates
The primary clients that the foundation is aiming at are the professional athletes in the
Australian jurisdiction. The reason why we are giving them the first priority is that they are
viewed as role models by society. They are also forced to achieve higher expectations by their
families, fans, and managers. Thus, they will always have mental disorders if they fail to achieve
such expectations and have no one to help them out. In addition, we shall be extending our
services to the general public and/or the community.
The foundation will be incorporating the established sports organizations such as the
Australian Sports Commission, and Cricket Australia among many others. Involving these firms
in our operations will enable us to reach professional athletes with ease.
There are different roles that we, the founders of the foundation, will play in making the
objectives of the firm, and the foundation itself comes, into life. The four of us are Abel, Angel,
Susan, and Joseph. Abel, who is specialized in effective communication, will be playing a role of
communicating with the clients to know the real cause of the mental disorders. Angel will be
involved in the assessment of how these patients are affected both mentally and physically as she
is specialized in diagnosis. Also, she will be involved in the recommendation of ways to solve
these disorders together with other professional doctors as she is qualified in the treatment of
disorders. Susan will play a role in promoting the awareness of mental difficulties so as to attract
more clients. Finally, I, Joseph, will be involved in the continuous assessment of the patients that

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we have aided in coping with their conditions. I am interested in post-trauma assessment more
than any other role in the foundation.
The implemented programs
We have already planned to install two programs that the foundation will be engaging in.
They include the psychoeducation program and the wilderness therapy program.
The psychoeducation program
This kind of a program will aim at educating the mentally affected clients and their
families on how best they can prevent the causes of such disorders. This program will focus on
the preventive measures only after they have been treated effectively.
The wilderness therapy program
This therapy will be either short or medium term program and it will be focused on the
diagnosis of the athletes with a wide range of emotional and mental disorders (Kisely, Campbell
& O'Reilly 2017). The program will simply offer the clients the best solutions to their problems
and put an end to their poorly made decisions and choices.
Conclusion
The Troopers foundation is aiming at becoming the best mental health foundation in the
future through the above objectives and programs. By focusing on the professional athletes who
suffer silently, as well as the community, we shall be able to effectively control these challenges.
The stated objectives and the two programs are our driving agents towards attaining free mental
disorder conditions in the Australian sporting sector.

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References
Amelia, G, Kathleen, MG, Andrew, M, Philip, JB & Rosanna, S 2015, 'The mental health of
Australian elite athletes', Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, vol 18, no. 3, pp. 255-261,
Retrived from https://www.jsams.org/article/S1440-2440(14)00075-9/abstract.
Areán, PA, Ly, KH & Andersson, G 2016, 'Mobile technology for mental health assessment',
Dialogues in clinical neuroscience, vol 18, no. 2, p. 163.
Barr, B, Taylor-Robinson, D, Stuckler, D, Loopstra, R, Reeves, A & Whitehead, M 2016, '‘First,
do no harm’: are disability assessments associated with adverse trends in mental health? A
longitudinal ecological study', J Epidemiol Community Health, vol 70, no. 4, pp. 339-345.
Kisely, SR, Campbell, LA & O'Reilly, R 2017, 'Compulsory community and involuntary
outpatient treatment for people with severe mental disorders', Cochrane database of systematic
reviews, no. 3.
Lehr, D, Geraedts, A, Asplund, RP, Khadjesari, Z, Heber, E, de Bloom, J, Ebert, DD, Angerer, P
& Funk, B 2016, 'Occupational e-mental health: current approaches and promising perspectives
for promoting mental health in workers', In Healthy at Work, pp. 257-281.
Meyer, OL, Saw, A, Cho, YI & Fancher, TL 2015, 'Disparities in assessment, treatment, and
recommendations for specialty mental health care: patient reports of medical provider behavior',
Health services research, vol 50, no. 3, pp. 750-767.
Mohammed, A, Sheikh, TL, Gidado, S, Poggensee, G, Nguku, P, Olayinka, A, Ohuabunwo, C,
Waziri, N, Shuaib, F, Adeyemi, J & Uzoma, O 2015, 'An evaluation of psychological distress

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