You can make an important contribution by advocating, educating and/or implementing Medical Amnesty on your campus and within college athletics.
For Student-Athletes:
First, identify whether a medical amnesty policy exists on campus. This can typically be found on the college website.
If your institution does not have a medical amnesty policy, we highly encourage you to meet with relevant campus decision makers to discuss the possibility of adopting a substance use medical amnesty policy. You can also start a petition to adopt medical amnesty on your campus and/or in the Athletic Dept as a way to show mass appeal. Here’s an Advocacy Letter and Petition Template – courtesy of withus.org.
If your institution has a substance use medical amnesty policy, we encourage you to do the following:
- Learn what rules and consequences coaches have about substance use and determine whether these rules are consistent with campus medical amnesty policies.
- Provide coaches with information about the campus medical amnesty policy, the benefits of medical amnesty for student safety and wellbeing and ways in which their actions impact athletes seeking help in medical emergencies.
- Advise coaches that team rules and practices related to substance use must not undermine the institution’s medical amnesty policy. This is very important.
- Encourage coaches to talk to their athletes about the importance of seeking help in substance use-related medical emergencies, and their support of the school’s medical amnesty policy.
For Coaches and Athletic Administrators:
First, identify whether a medical amnesty policy exists on campus. This can typically be found on the college website.
If your institution does not have a medical amnesty policy, we highly encourage you to meet with relevant campus decision makers to discuss the possibility of adopting a substance use medical amnesty policy.
If your institution has a substance use medical amnesty policy, we encourage the Athletic Dept/Coaches to do the following on an annual basis:
- Obtain information from coaches about team-level rules related to substance use and determine their consistency with the department and institution’s policy related to medical amnesty.
- Communicate to all coaches the expectation of the athletic department that team rules and practices related to substance use must not undermine the institution’s medical amnesty policy.
- Provide coaches with information about (1) the existence and nature of their institution’s medical amnesty policy, (2) the benefits of medical amnesty, and (3) ways in which their actions can facilitate or impede athletes seeking help in medical-related emergencies.
- Require coaches to communicate to their athletes on their team their support for medical amnesty, directly addressing potential student-athlete concerns that help seeking will lead to negative consequences.
- Provide athletes with specific information about (1) the existence and nature of their institution’s medical amnesty policy, (2) procedurally what happens if help is sought in a medical emergency, address issues of confidentiality, (3) the potential lifesaving benefits of help seeking in substance use-related medical emergencies.
- Clearly communicate to athletes the athletic department’s support for their institution’s medical amnesty policy, directly addressing potential student athlete concerns that help seeking will lead to negative athletic consequences.
We recommend on a routine basis the following:
- Obtain athlete feedback about experiences with medical, psychological, or other forms of care related to substance use in emergency and non-emergency situations. Issues to address include, but are not limited to resource availability, confidentiality, and experiences with racism or other forms of discrimination during the help seeking or care process.
- Review athlete feedback with a multidisciplinary group of stakeholders involved in athlete health and safety.