47% of colleges and universities are actively pursuing adding virtual coaching support for athletes, up from 11% back 6 years ago. The hiring is a good trend although not without some issues:
Are the clinicians being hired leaving jobs where they are serving a larger pool of patients in communities, including underserved communities? The answer is often yes, as the clinical social workers with mental health training, or the psychologists, leave jobs in community crisis centers serving north of 3,000 to 5,000 patients, to serve a few hundred athletes at a division 1, 2 or 3 college.
Is the “virtual therapy” model the right one - presumably yes, as it’s easier to do, the younger athletes like it and prefer it, and it allows for the therapy to be done at a lower cost, but does it have the same impact as in-person therapy? Is it really leading to the same improvement? Short answer is mixed depending on the athlete’s needs and mental condition and sport, and depending on the match, like if the therapist is a good fit for the athlete. In our poll of universities, 82% said they once thought and preferred only an on-site counselor and now that number 6 years later is 62%. This suggests a pivot and progression toward more rapid response virtual care for colleges and athletes.
Is the skill set of those going in to help the college athletes high enough, essentially are they trained for the job of supporting the college athlete? The number of jobs for mental health clinicians within athletics continues to rise but the colleges and universities tend to be hiring fewer certified mental performance consultant For instance, several colleges this past summer hired embedded therapists in athletics that only had PsyD, LCSW, or LPC but no formal sport psych training at all. NBA and MLB teams also have hired clinicians with no formal sports psych training.