Exploring sport officials’ mental health

This is a multi-phase research project with collaboration from five Canadian sport officiating partners: Ontario Association of Basketball Officials, Canadian Basketball Official’s Commission, Rugby Ontario, Rugby Canada, and NoRefsNoGames—referred to as “The Partners”. The project aims to (1) investigate challenges sport officials face that negatively influence their mental health, (2) learn the strategies sport officials use to cope with mental stressors, (3) discover how officiating organizations support sport officials’ mental health, (4) develop interventions to improve sport officials’ mental health and mental health literacy, and (5) strengthen the relationship between sport officiating researchers and organizations, thereby increasing future research capacity.