NZ Rugby and Movember bring you Mind.Set.Engage.

With one in two New Zealanders experiencing a mental health issue in their lifetime, the success of rugby’s mental wellness program, Mind Set Engage, is both inspiring and crucial. By reducing the stigma surrounding mental health, this program encourages individuals to seek help and support one another, fostering a culture of empathy, understanding, and resilience.

Mind Set Engage is a comprehensive mental health and wellbeing program that equips individuals with the tools to improve their own mental wellbeing and support those around them. The program empowers communities to prioritise their mental health and build resilience. Established in 2017, the NZ Rugby and Movember partnership operates across the country and has had significant success supporting a cultural shift in the rugby community that sees more people seeking and receiving help.

Part of the Mind Set Engage workshops involve the delivery of mental health literacy training sessions for the rugby community across Aotearoa. The delivery of mental health promotion is aimed at helping participants to support their own wellbeing and that of others, ensuring an environment where help-seeking is acceptable, which results in a compassionate and supportive response, and stigma reducing activities.

The target audiences of the Mind Set Engage workshops are rugby players (with a particular focus on 18 - 30 year old males) and key influencers involved in creating mentally healthy spaces in rugby (e.g. coaches, parents, club leaders, or administrators).

Through running these workshops, the Mind Set Engage team aims to:

• Strengthen the individual’s ability and intent to improve or maintain positive mental fitness and utilise effective strategies to cope with challenges in and outside of rugby.
• Create sustainable environments in the rugby community that encourage conversations about mental health, and support help-seeking and receiving.
• Increase participants ability to recognise signs of distress, how check-in, where to get help and to encourage friends, whānau and team members to find support.

Collaboration is an essential part of Movember’s approach to funding. By partnering with NZ Rugby, who speak to over 100,000 NZ men regularly, ensures that Mind Set Engage is delivered to them in their environments and in a language they understand.

Mind Set Engage continues to improve the mental health and wellbeing of NZ men. Many rugby players are Mo Bros, so investing back into a community that has been hugely supportive of Movember, plus the reach of rugby in New Zealand, means that this improvement reaches across the country.

Head to mindsetengage.co.nz to find out more.