Player Welfare Program

What this is

Clubs lose players quietly. Someone stops turning up after Round 8, an injured player never comes back, a volunteer burns out — and there's no system built to catch any of it until it's already happened.

This program builds that system inside your club: a structured way of staying connected to every player, spotting when someone's drifting, and responding fast — run day-to-day by someone on your own committee, not by an outside provider you have to keep paying.

It is a connection, culture, and referral program. It is not counselling, diagnosis, or treatment, and it isn't positioned as a mental health service — where a concern goes beyond what a club program should handle, it's referred to a professional, every time.

How it works

A hybrid delivery model: set up, train, then step back.

You end up owning a working program and a trained person to run it — not an ongoing dependency on an outside provider.

What's included

• A structured methodology for building trust and connection across a playing group
• A regular 1:1 check-in rhythm, integrated with injury reports so players don't fall through the cracks during rehab
• A Wellness Champions network — a peer-support layer across your teams, so it doesn't rely on one person
• A pre-season and in-season wellbeing survey, plus a content and resource library for the group
• A local partnership playbook and a governance/reporting format your committee can actually use

Why this, why now

Developed and run over a full season inside a VAFA club, with a continuous, auditable record of program activity across the playing group. [Add specific outcome figures once confirmed]

Built by someone who has done this role, not designed it from the outside — a full season as a club's own Player Welfare Manager, inside an actual playing group, alongside a coaching background built on the same connection-first approach.

[Reviewed by Advisor Name, Credentials — add only once sign-off is confirmed]