Our Mental Health Initiative
Here at push skateboarding for a cause we believe mental health is priority number one. We are proud to say a portion of the proceeds of every push product goes into providing a mental health specialist on staff. Providing therapy for not only all our professional skateboarders, but also for sidewalk distribution employees and family, free of charge. The strain of professional skateboarding can be tough for teens and young adults, often times they have no avenue to talk about their problems when most of their friends look to them as having the “dream job” or the “dream life” having someone in house to talk to breaks down the wall and stigma related to therapy and normalizes it. As time progresses, we hope to share our resources and make mental health specialists an industry standard for all skateboard companies.
We also use part of the proceeds to donate skateboards to skate therapy. Skate therapy takes kids and young adults off the couch and puts them on the curb to talk and open up. Relating back to the kids by taking them out of the clinical office and into the skateparks where they can skate and connect with a mental health professional who is just like them.. a skateboarder who speaks their language. Fearful of dropping in on the big ramp when you have done it on every other smaller ramp at the park can easily translate to overcoming everyday challenges that arise, by just knowing you can do it, and just “drop in”
As with any trick the hardest part is dropping in and committing to it. And with push skateboarding for a cause, we understand with mental health the hardest part is reaching out. Websites with too much info but no help, therapists you don’t know or don’t understand you, we get it. We’ve been there too, searching for help but not finding anything. If you are looking into getting therapy for your own needs, drop in, reach out to Clayton.