STUDENT-ATHLETE ONLINE ANONYMOUS RESOURCE

The purpose and main goal of the SOAR Health app is to help student-athletes become more confident and comfortable talking about their personal challenges with others. As a result, more individuals will feel more comfortable taking the initiative to seek out and utilize the already available resources and school-provided professionals on campus.

SOAR is helping overcome the mental health stigma associated with athletes by providing an anonymous platform for them to talk about and share their story and challenges with other athletes from around the country.

The SOAR anonymous social platform is the solution for overcoming the personal obstacles facing collegiate athletes and getting them on a track to obtain a better daily mindset with their mental health.

There are an endless amount of professional resources available to student-athletes but yet the utilization of these resources among this group remains very low. SOAR provides athletes a safe anonymous platform to start the process of talking about their personal challenges with others who can relate to their experiences.

Currently, no service or resource effectively focuses on bridging the gap between the mental health stigma among athletes and the utilization of professional help. There are many professional resources that can help improve the mental health of student-athletes but the utilization rate will continue to remain low among this group until this is addressed.

As a former professional and student-athlete who experienced mental health challenges, I created the SOAR platform to finally give athletes a safe space to anonymously talk about and discuss their personal challenges in order to help them feel more comfortable talking about their mental health with others.

The SOAR app gives student-athletes the perfect forum to overcome the mental health stigma by providing them an environment where they can feel comfortable without outside pressure to write and talk about their feelings to share with other student-athletes who can easily relate to how they feel.

By providing a platform where the student-athlete's identity can remain anonymous, they can feel comfort in knowing that they can share their story with others that are in very similar situations without revealing their identity. This anonymous function promotes more dialogue among student-athletes who are desperate to talk about their mental health challenges while also giving them the freedom to be more open and honest with their thoughts.

• Write, talk, and anonymously post their personal story about their thoughts and mental health challenges to share with other student-athletes.

• Scroll through a main timeline feed to read stories and posts shared by other anonymous student-athletes. This promotes a feeling of self-worthiness knowing that you are not alone in your struggles and that there are many others dealing with similar things.

• Comment on posts from other student-athletes to relate with them and show your support for their issues and challenges.

• Direct message other student-athlete users who are facing similar issues and circumstances in order to show support for them, talk with them about their feelings, or lend advice and share tips that helped you overcome similar issues in the past.

Feeling comfortable talking about your issues is the first step in getting better. Having access to an anonymous platform to share your story without having to worry about what people may think of you is the key to overcoming the current stigma in athletes and ultimately overcoming personal mental health challenges.