A critical element to support this work is the inclusion in both Sport NZ and HPSNZ strategies that aims to address the barriers to female health and performance across the end-to-end pathway and to maximise the opportunity to thrive in sport.
A priority for Healthy Women in Performance Sport Lead, physiologist Dr Sue Robson, and medical female health specialist, Dr Helen Fulcher, has been to hear directly from female athletes about their experiences, concerns and future needs to inform planning.
The process of athlete engagement and feedback is underway with the first session held with Cambridge based female athletes in May and a second in Auckland next month.
Organised and supported by HPSNZ’s Waikato Performance Life team, Sue and Helen were joined at the listening sessions by the Performance Nutrition teams.
In addition to the coffee mornings Sue has been actively engaging with National Sports Organisations (NSOs) and members of athlete representative groups including the Athlete Leaders Network (ALN) and player associations. This has been a combination of group sessions and individual guided discussions sharing and taking feedback into the strategy, prioritisation and planning.
Sue says the goal of the coffee mornings was to create a free discussion environment for female athletes which enabled and encouraged open conversations around their health as women and as athletes.
She describes the first the session as very positive, productive and enthusiastic. “If the noise level is any gauge of engagement, then it was extremely successful.”
Some common themes emerged from the first session including suggestions about how to improve athletes feeling safe and heard, education for both coaches and athletes, and improved evaluation and tracking capabilities to help identify recovery and performance opportunities.
Additionally, there were more specific female health requests for increased information around contraception choices and their performance/health impact, menstrual cycle management as well as pregnancy and fertility.
“While listening to our female athletes and sports via the initial engagement sessions is an essential part of our planning we want to hear from the group on an ongoing basis,” says Sue.
Healthy Women in Performance Sport (HWiPS) wants to continue to hear athletes’ ideas and feedback which they can do either through their ALN contact or directly into the email address healthywomen@hpsnz.org.nz. Having conversations with female athlete and sports will help inform the next steps, set up the right organisational structure for decision making and finalising our strategy.
HWiPS also aims to continue the conversation on female health on a regular basis through events like coffee mornings encouraging athlete-to-athlete conversations as well as providing an environment for questions and ideas to percolate and inform the future.”
With the female athlete and NSO engagement well underway, several other projects are being implemented concurrently. These include advising on updates for the periodic health evaluation in collaboration with performance health and nutrition, developing a Healthy Women collaboration and resource hub for both external and internal use and updating information resources on concussion in female athletes and pregnancy.
