Cricket Australia to appoint mental health overseer
Jul 14, 2020
Melbourne [Australia], July 14 : Cricket Australia (CA) is set to appoint a mental health overseer after advertising for the role of mental health and wellbeing lead.
The person who is selected for the role will be reporting to its head of sports science Alex Kountouris, ESPNCricinfo reported.
Australian cricketers Glenn Maxwell, Nic Maddinson and Will Pucovski all took a break from cricket last year as they were dealing with mental health issues.
"The new Mental Health and Wellbeing Lead will give a greater focus on mental health at Cricket Australia, giving us an individual resource dedicated to this area. The role will also provide broader case management support for CA contracted players," ESPNCricinfo quoted CA's high performance chief Drew Ginn as saying.
"It's a great chance to prioritise mental health. It will provide further reinforcement to our current psychologists working with our teams. To have a dedicated leader in a national role and having them focus on a national strategy, policy, future partnerships, critical case management and support for players and states is a positive step forward for the sport," he added.
As per a report in ESPNCricinfo, required qualifications for the role include post-graduate qualification in psychology/psychiatry, behavioural science, or a related field and clinical practice experience, in addition to senior management and case management expertise.
The advertisement for the role comes as CA had made 40 redundancies after suffering a massive impact from coronavirus pandemic.
Last year, AFL had also appointed its own head of mental health and wellbeing.
