Nearly 1 in 7 Australian children will experience a mental health setback in their lifetime and 1 in 5 Australians will suffer from mental illness in any one year. 

Tackle Your Feelings is a free training program built to respond to mental health challenges AFL players might experience. The program teaches AFL coaches and other club staff how to encourage positive mental health outcomes in their communities. Formed in 2018, the program is run by local psychologists who teach learners to Understand, Recognise and Respond to signs that players might need support with their mental health.

The program consists of a 90 minute workshop with a psychologist, online training, and online resources. High-profile AFL player and coach ambassadors lead the public face of the program, encouraging players and the AFL community to be aware of the issues surrounding mental health. 

Tackle Your Feelings is constantly growing to deliver new, high-quality programs to a wider audience. Their latest program for senior players and umpires is available to select regions in 2023.

You can see how your mental health checks out by taking the test on the Tackle Your Feelings website.

Tackle Your Feelings and Androgogic

Androgogic is proud to partner with AFL Coaches Association and the Tackle Your Feelings program to host their Learning Management System (LMS) using the Totara Talent Experience Platform. 

The system has a sleek user interface that aligns with the Tackle Your Feelings brand to create an experience that is virtually indistinguishable from their public website. Androgogic’s Digital Design team worked to create an experience that feels organic and is easy to navigate. 

Every learner starts on the same dashboard, where you choose the state you are learning in using the interactive map. Once you’ve selected your state, you are directed to location-specific resources and psychologist-led workshops.

More on courseware development

Androgogic’s Learning Experience Design team collaborated with subject matter experts in the Tackle Your Feelings program to develop a series of modules that targeted different aspects of mental health.

Club members in Adult, Youth, and Junior age groups undertake targeted learning which train players to Understand, Recognise, and Manage signs of mental ill-health. These online SCORM modules are paired with face-to-face workshops, which are managed on the Totara Talent Experience Platform (TXP). 

Coaches are assigned training on the Four Quarters of Mental Health. This training is also available to be undertaken as part of their general AFL Coaches training. 

Interested in the Tackle Your Feelings site? Take a look for yourself 

The impact

The Tackle Your Feelings program has had resounding success across AFL clubs across Australia, seeing positive impacts on individual players and entire clubs. The LMS has had over 9000 registered users over its lifetime, with the program being delivered to more than 2500 participants just in 2022. Since it began in 2018, over 7200 AFL players, coaches and other staff in every Australian state and territory have learnt positive mental health strategies through this program.