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Mental Health Summit Jan 20-21, 2023

General

PAC hosts mental health summit at Saint Vincent

General

PAC hosts mental health summit at Saint Vincent

NEW WILMINGTON, Pa.--The Fred Rogers Institute at Saint Vincent College hosted a Mental Health Summit for the Presidents' Athletic Conference (PAC) last weekend in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Informed by the vision and legacy of Fred Rogers, this summit did exactly what Mister Rogers did throughout his life – listen.

Representing Westminster College at the two-day event were: senior women's golfer Morgan Byers (Venetia, Pa. | Peters Township), senior women's tennis player Sabrina Slagle (Upper St. Clair, Pa. | Upper St. Clair), senior associate director of athletics, senior woman administrator (SWA) and head women's volleyball coach Tammy Swearingen and head men's and women's soccer coach Girish Thakar. 

The event was developed as a fellowship between the PAC, Saint Vincent and the Fred Rogers Institute with a focus and interest in the mental health needs and challenges of student-athletes. Student-athletes and athletic administrators, faculty members, coaches and athletic trainers from all 11 full PAC institutions gathered to share their stories and offer their concerns for the mental health issues of college student-athletes.

"Representing Westminster as a student-athlete at the Mental Health and Wellbeing Summit was truly an incredible experience. I got to sit in front of a room full of coaches, trainers, mental health professionals, etc., and comfortably talk about my experiences with my own mental health. Not to mention, I sat alongside 25+ student-athletes from different institutions and had the pleasure of learning from their experiences as well," said Slagle. "I met so many people from all over the conference, and I felt like I came home with a huge load off my shoulders and 10 more friends than I went into it with."

"The mental health of a collegiate student-athlete is something that we have needed to advocate for much earlier than this past weekend. Especially after the effects of Covid-19 visibly put a strain on students' mental health all over the world. So, to say that I am grateful that this summit finally happened would be an understatement," said Slagle. "I struggled tremendously through the Covid-19 times with my mental health, and I felt like I could finally share why in a public forum. Not only am I thankful to have been given the opportunity to share, but I'm more thankful that I felt like the audience learned from it. To know that the coaches and trainers that represented Westminster came out of the conference looking to make a change was the most heartwarming outcome for me."

The summit was led by Becky Zill, Psy.D., the Citrone Family Fellow for Mental Health and Wellness at the Fred Rogers Institute, and Dana Winters, Ph.D., The Rita M. McGinley Endowed Executive Director of the Fred Rogers Institute. Dr. Zill, a neuropsychologist who specializes in concussion/brain injuries, is a former student-athlete at Division I Niagara University and former Division III head coach.

The PAC worked with each institution's Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) to select the right participants to attend the summit, as the main goal of the event was directly hear the league's student-athletes to focus on their specific needs. Dr. Zill and other independent observers facilitated conversation, which included sessions broken out by roles in athletics and by institutions.

"It was incredibly beneficial hearing other students share their first hand experiences with the anxiety and other outside stressors that come with being a student-athlete. It was also a great experience bonding with other student-athletes that, if it weren't for the summit, I likely would never have met let alone gotten so close with. The summit was able to show everyone in a light that allowed you to see them as a person that has difficulties in their day to day life and not just as a competitor," said Byers. 

After learning from the student-athletes and everyone in attendance, the next steps are the development of an action plan that can be instituted by PAC athletics programs to better support their student-athletes.
 
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Players Mentioned

Sabrina Slagle

Sabrina Slagle

Senior
Morgan Byers

Morgan Byers

Junior

Players Mentioned

Sabrina Slagle

Sabrina Slagle

Senior
Morgan Byers

Morgan Byers

Junior

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