Supporting mental health during professionalisation: Insights from UK women’s domestic cricket

UK women’s cricket is one example of a sport that has been going through domestic professionalization. While the transition toward professionalization in women’s sport has been widely heralded, research has begun to highlight that this transition includes unique challenges that can impact upon athletes’ mental health. Therefore, the present study, through interviews with 8 players and 6 athlete support personnel across all 8 of the domestic regions, drew on women’s domestic cricket to provide novel insights on existing mental health support and key areas for supporting mental health during professionalization. We interpreted 5 key areas for supporting athletes’ mental health within this context (i.e., prioritization of clinical psychological support, clarity of mental health support structures, confidential support and breaking down perceived stigma, parity in mental health support and proactive mental health support). Due to small athlete-support personnel teams, limited resources and additional pressures during professionalization, clear support pathways and clinical expertise and support are needed for both players and staff. Players and staff also advocated for more time and resources to be invested in sport psychologists and/or well-being teams during professionalization to ensure proactive mental health support can be implemented. In conjunction with the ECB, these findings led to increased clinical and performance psychology practitioner time and resources, clearer leadership around mental health policy and pathways and specialist mental health contact points being implemented within the regional women’s game. Future research is needed to evaluate players’ and staffs’ perceptions of the implementation and impact of these support recommendations.