we want to prepare for life you know we want to be most challenging for the kids to push them on to the next level but as well in that challenge mean we have to be caring how can we support every single individual to live up to the expectations really and support them in every aspect of their personal individual development our vision strong young Genesis is it's perfect in that sense of that we have a lot of individuals here we want to build them up strong that they can stand up strong in every challenge they face there can be mental health in regarding to being released from from this club being injured and struggling at home so we we try to put everything in place here to make sure that there's an open forum for mental health the amount of pressure these youngsters are facing at a very young age is immense so is our job you know to always raise that you know to ourselves to bring perspective really to life and to there to our young kids who were part of our Academy is it's tough because of the nature of the football world but we want to make sure that we put perspective in it have reality checks along the way and make sure that we have humble individuals as I said strong young Gunners who are able to steer you know their their journey and their path but they always know that there's someone to support someone to help so one of the biggest challenges we have in helping young men is to talk about their mental health and to talk about how they feel that's something that gets often avoided and can be underpinning how they behave and how they think and act a regular conversation with the player often surrounds how are you and they go I'm fine I'm calm and they walk off Academy Island is a metaphor it's something that was constructed with the players and staff to a common language that everyone can talk about in regards to emotional literacy it gives something that other people can have a conversation and we decided to draw up literally an island and then say if you would have populated with a number of different geographical places but that could refer to situations or emotions or feelings where would they be on the island and what would the islands have as part of it from having an idea on a white board with colored pens we got a designer's in to help us put it in a far more visual form it's magnetic and everyone got a magnet and then they're able to put themselves somewhere and move themselves around the map at the top the Bay of Plenty that's where when you get a new contract it's when your friends and family are all there there's a real influx of money and you've got the light freely everyone is singing and talking about you people tend to go when I come for a cruise often when they get there unfortunately that doesn't go all the way to the island of opportunity which is what they assumed because the reality is on this map the helicopter pad that's the manager and that's what gets you across to the first thing you know it's quite a tough experience going through something you see your mates doing really well when January's come up and you know you've got players going alone and pushing up with the first team and so you can find yourself you know one day you're on Mount challenge then suddenly you're back in the head loss and then you're back at my challenge ins so it's nice to be able to sort of look at the map and realize where you are and sort of move locations sometimes you're in head loss you can put yourself back on that challenge ins yeah yeah go from there so I'm just on the edge of returning and still say yeah I'm down at Mount Challenge ins hopefully you get back to playing soon it's really important players work out where are they at the moment so if there's been a lot of change so we've got winds of change over here we've got a lot of sort of geographical things that can create sort of confusion and it can create a head loss so again it's really important players go Juneau up that is honestly where I am but I know where I need to get to or how I'm going to get there and then this map has got highs and lows but it's got a very low point on it as well we have off the map that's our reference point for mental health there and that's the point where we want someone to reach out for help we want teammates to notice in with each other and we want them to tell us I would say at times the the island is fun so therefore that takes away some of the stigma or the seriousness of it because we use it to have fun what it does do is start more conversations regularly with groups of them that they might then take down to the changing room or to another setting even adults even at that time when I struggled before games and I was not really comfortable with this situation Oh always trying to think that it shows a weakness in yourself you know speaking about yourself seeking help we're trying to get rid of that notion and trying to make sure that bringing out more stories about about myself about others bringing bringing people into more attention that top athletes struggle it's normal you know we're trying to bring it to live in a normal possible way and have encouraged youngsters you know to speak up and speak out no matter what because we are club that cares and if you want to be most caring we need to support in every given moment [Music]