RACHEL WILCOCK

I am a Research Assistant in Sport, Mental Health and Education in the Faculty of Education, where I am also a member of the Centre for Mental Health, Sport and Physical Activity. I co-lead the evaluation of the Tackling the Blues programme, and my research interests focus on the links between sport, physical activity and mental health in education and other community settings.

In my current role, I am the co-lead for the research and evaluation of the Tackling the Blues programme. This research focuses on the co-production of TtB with relevant stakeholders to create a mental health literacy programme for children and young people aged 6-16 years.

My interests are related to design, implementation, and evaluation of mental health programmes and support in education and community settings. I am passionate about collaborative research which is inclusive of qualitative methods, co-production, and participatory research methods including visual and creative methods.

My MSc dissertation explored how taking part in physical activity through running and parkrun can impact the health and wellbeing of females. In my first role at Edge Hill University, I explored the rugby themed education-based male mental health programme ‘Offload’, and its impacts to the mental fitness of men aged 16 and older in three locations in north-west England. I worked in partnership with Rugby League Cares, State of Mind Sport, and three Rugby League club’s charitable Foundations (Warrington Wolves, Widnes Vikings and Salford Red Devils) to conduct a mixed-methods approach to the evaluation of ‘Offload’ using Realist Evaluation as a framework. This evaluation aimed to assist Rugby League Cares in the growth and expansion of the ‘Offload’ project to the other Super League Rugby Clubs.