Oxford United player calls on football clubs to join suicide prevention movement
Will Vaulks is urging clubs to commit to meaningful mental health action
Will Vaulks is urging football clubs across the country to take greater responsibility for mental health support, calling on the game to unite behind suicide prevention initiatives following work undertaken at Oxford United.
Speaking ahead of his upcoming community workshop at the Kassam Stadium, he made an impassioned plea for clubs to implement suicide prevention training and workplace awareness schemes.
“I want every football club to buy into this,” Will said. “It’s proven hard – I’ve been trying for a year or 18 months to get other football clubs on board for a nominal amount of money, sometimes for free.
“There will come a point where I feel like I need to put out a call to action because we’ve seen in our workplace the difference and what it can do, and now going forward into the supporter base.”
Will, who lost both of his grandfathers to suicide and has used his platform to speak openly about his experiences, believes football has both the opportunity and the responsibility to lead change.
“You might not always have a player who’s been bereaved by suicide that’s willing to speak, but in terms of prevention and awareness, that can be put into every workplace so I want every single football club to have it," he said.
At Oxford United, suicide prevention training and awareness have become central pillars of the club’s 'Can We Talk?' campaign.
He believes the model is simple and replicable across the football pyramid.
“There’s a lot of complicated things and hoops to jump through with charity work, but actually with this it’s simple – just sign up to the workplace pledge, get your staff trained, get the players to sit through an hour. That’s all they have to do and it will really open their eyes to mental health and the support that’s out there.
“It should be put into law in my opinion, I feel that strongly about it.”
Will continued: “We need the stakeholders, we need the decision-makers in the club. It’s all well and good sharing these things and saying, ‘that’s really good what you’ve been doing there’ – do it then.”
He said he is currently liaising with the Professional Footballers' Association in an effort to expand the initiative across more clubs.
“I want football clubs to realise that it’s out there and we can support you. We can put in place what we’ve done at Oxford and actually you have a responsibility to do it. You’ve got young men and women in your care and currently there’s not enough support.”
Will's latest step is hosting a free suicide prevention workshop for supporters at the Kassam Stadium next month, funded by the 10,000 euro grant he received from his international Player Voice Award last year.
“I have some funding that was available to me from the FIFPRO award that I won and I wanted that to go back into the Oxfordshire community,” he explained.
“I don’t say this lightly – but I genuinely believe it will save lives.”
The workshop forms part of wider outreach work in schools, where Will speaks openly about the realities behind the professional football image.
"I think it’s really important to show as a footballer that while you may think from the outside everything is great in my life or it’s been really easy - it hasn’t. There’s challenges we all have to face and young people need to understand that the support is available to them to make to those those hurdles easier to jump over” he said.
With male suicide rates accounting for around three quarters of deaths, Will believes football – a male-dominated industry with a largely male fanbase – has a unique role to play.
He said: “If I can be a man talking openly about mental health and about suicide then I just really hope that those fans in the stand – your typical blokes that come and watch the football and don’t want to talk about feelings – might just think, ‘you know what, I’ll ask my mate how he is.’
“That’s the conversation that saves lives.”