At the beginning of 2023, Laura Spolverato joined the SPMB research group and started a PhD under the supervision of Paul Wylleman, Koen De Brandt and Jolan Kegelaers. Her topic focuses on how entourage members (e.g. coaches, parents, partners) can support athletes’ and their own mental health in elite sport.
Laura comes from Italy, and before starting her PhD journey at VUB, she completed her studies at Università degli Studi di Padova, where she graduated in Clinical Developmental Psychology in 2021. After her studies, she decided to focus on sport psychology, completing various internships both in research and applied sport psychology in Italy and in Germany.
During her PhD she will first investigate athletes’ and entourage members’ mental health, mental health literacy and their perception of support in dealing with mental health problems. In the next phase, the aim will be to develop tools and resources to promote entourage members mental health literacy, first aid competencies, and self-care competencies.
To do so, Laura will play an active role as a doctoral researcher in the Erasmus+ Sport project “Promoting mental health through the entourage in high-performance sport" (MENTiS). In the first phase, a survey will be developed for athletes and entourage members, and in the next phase tools and resources will be developed aimed at entourage members.