Esports organization Cloud9 and health care company Kaiser Permanente have announced a new initiative focused on increasing awareness about mental health. This initiative will aim to help Cloud9’s players work on their own mental health and leverage Cloud9’s large fan base to shed light on ways to address mental health and reduce stigma about the topic.
The initiative has three parts: providing mental health training to Cloud9 players, coaches, and staff; airing a Twitch series focused on increasing awareness of mental health; and educating community moderators so they can facilitate positive discussions on mental health topics. The multiyear initiative is called Presence of Mind.
Cloud9’s League of Legends team will get the training first, with the League of Legends Academy team to follow at a later date. Cloud9 is one of the stalwarts of League of Legends’ Championship Series (LCS), and the players are “under tremendous pressure to succeed,” said Jack Etienne, Cloud9’s founder and CEO, in an interview with The Verge. “And we haven’t always had the tools that Kaiser is bringing to us to deal with it.”
Through this training, Kaiser Permanente will provide the tools to drive open, nonjudgmental, and honest conversations about mental health within the gaming community.
