Sports & Mental Health Fellow
Help make sports a stronger environment for human flourishing.
About the Fellowship
Voice Up is seeking Sports & Mental Health Fellows who want to explore one of the most important issues affecting athletes today: how we create sports environments where people can compete, grow, lead, and succeed while also supporting their mental and emotional well-being.
Sports can create belonging, confidence, discipline, identity, and lifelong relationships. At the same time, athletes may experience pressures that are not always visible — performance expectations, injuries, transitions, academic responsibilities, financial concerns, social media attention, identity challenges, uncertainty about the future, and the pressure to appear strong even when they need support.
The Sports & Mental Health Fellowship gives students and emerging professionals an opportunity to help develop practical solutions. This is not simply an internship where participants observe someone else’s work. Fellows are encouraged to research, listen, collaborate, create, and build.
How can we make sports a stronger environment for human flourishing?
Three Ways to Participate
Paid Special Projects
Selected fellows may complete assigned projects for $20–$30 per hour for up to 10 hours per month. Projects may involve research, program development, athlete engagement, communications, resource development, community outreach, or other areas connected to sports and mental health. Paid hours depend on available projects, organizational needs, experience, and the fellow’s skills.
Academic Credit
Students may participate through an internship, practicum, field experience, independent study, research experience, or another academic-credit arrangement. The number of hours is determined by the requirements of the student’s college, university, graduate school, doctoral program, medical program, or other professional training program. Voice Up will work with students and, when appropriate, their academic programs to structure meaningful experiences connected to learning objectives.
Combined Experience
When appropriate, fellows may participate through a combination of academic credit and separately assigned paid special projects. This structure allows students to complete substantial academic requirements while also developing professional consulting experience.
What Fellows May Work On
Fellows are not expected to provide therapy or clinical mental health treatment. The focus is on education, research, prevention, innovation, leadership, and connection to appropriate resources.
Student-Athletes Are Strongly Encouraged to Apply
Current and former student-athletes bring an especially important perspective to this work. You understand aspects of athletics that cannot always be learned from a textbook: practices, competition, expectations, relationships with coaches, balancing academics and athletics, injuries, wins and losses, team dynamics, and the question every athlete eventually faces:
“Who am I beyond my sport?”
Your lived experience has value. Fellows will have opportunities to turn those experiences into ideas that can potentially help other athletes.
Who Should Apply?
This fellowship is intentionally interdisciplinary. Students from any major or academic discipline may apply. Particularly relevant areas include:
Sports & Human Performance
Sports management · Kinesiology · Exercise science · Athletic training · Physical education · Sports medicine
Mental & Behavioral Health
Psychology · Social work · Counseling · Behavioral health · Public health · Nursing · Medicine
Leadership & Innovation
Business · Entrepreneurship · Communications · Marketing · Education · Data science · Artificial intelligence · Technology
Undergraduate, master’s, doctoral, medical, and professional students are welcome. You do not need to be a mental health professional to contribute.
The Voice Up Approach
Voice Up’s work is grounded in five principles: Collaboration, Humility, Precision, Patience, and Empathy. Fellows are encouraged to apply these principles while working with athletes, students, professionals, mentors, universities, and communities.
Rather than beginning with the assumption that we already know what athletes need, fellows are challenged to listen first:
- What are athletes actually experiencing?
- What resources already exist?
- Where are the gaps?
- What would athletes actually use?
- What could we build that makes a meaningful difference?
From Research to Something Real
A central goal of the fellowship is to move beyond discussion. Depending on the project and length of participation, fellows may help produce tangible work such as:
Students completing longer academic placements may develop a substantial culminating project aligned with their academic requirements and professional interests.
What We Are Looking For
- Curious.
- Dependable.
- Empathetic.
- Willing to listen.
- Comfortable collaborating with people from different backgrounds.
- Interested in sports and human well-being.
- Able to work independently in a remote environment.
Most importantly, we are looking for people who believe sports can become an even stronger platform for helping people flourish. You do not need to arrive with all the answers. You need to be willing to ask meaningful questions and help build thoughtful solutions.
Why This Matters
The conversation about athlete mental health has changed dramatically. Athletes at every level are increasingly speaking openly about pressure, anxiety, depression, identity, burnout, injury, expectations, and the challenges that can accompany competition.
The next challenge is moving from awareness to action. That requires more than mental health professionals alone. It requires athletes, coaches, researchers, educators, public health professionals, families, technologists, communicators, universities, community organizations, and emerging leaders willing to work across traditional boundaries.
The Sports & Mental Health Fellowship is an opportunity to become one of those leaders.
Program Details
100% Remote
Location
Flexible
Schedule
$20–$30/hr
Paid Projects
Academic credit available
Credit
Up to 10 hours per month on paid special projects. Academic credit hours are determined by your college, university, or professional program.