Team Mindset Sessions

What a session covers

Sessions are built from what the coaching staff tells us the team is dealing with, with optional input from the athletes beforehand. No two are identical. Common ground:

• Team communication, and what body language says on the bench and on the field
• Handling pressure and nerves without pretending they are not there
• Focus, and how attention actually works under fatigue
• Goal setting that is about process rather than results
• Confidence, and where it genuinely comes from
• Bouncing back from mistakes, losses and injuries
• Balancing sport with school, family and everything else

Sessions run 60, 90 or 120 minutes and are delivered in person, at your location. Contact us for pricing and we will send a written quote.

What the research supports, and what it does not

We would rather set expectations honestly than sell you a season turnaround.

One finding worth handing to coaches directly: across 177 studies, the motivational climate a coach creates was moderately associated with young athletes' outcomes (r = 0.31, 95% CI 0.28 to 0.34), most strongly with their motivation and thinking, then with emotion and wellbeing.² A mastery-focused environment, where effort and improvement are what get noticed, is doing more work than most single interventions ever will.

On early specialisation and burnout

Following the 2019 American Medical Society for Sports Medicine summit on youth early sport specialisation, the consensus across health organisations is that early intensive training in one sport may contribute to increased injury risk and to dropout and burnout, without necessarily improving the odds of elite success later. The common recommendation is multi-sport participation with specialisation delayed.³ Notably, the bodies involved declined to put an age number on "early".

On burnout itself, we are going to decline to give you a percentage. Athlete burnout is well described as a three-part pattern of emotional and physical exhaustion, a reduced sense of accomplishment, and losing the sense that the sport matters.⁴ But published prevalence figures vary enormously depending on the instrument and cut-off used, and there is no validated clinical threshold. Anyone quoting you a firm burnout rate for youth athletes is quoting something the evidence does not support.

How sessions run, and how athletes are kept safe

Screening

We complete whatever screening your club or league requires, including police vulnerable sector checks where that is the standard. Ontario has no single province-wide safe sport screening rule; each provincial sport organisation sets its own, so we work to yours. The Ontario Hockey Federation, for example, requires third-party skills coaches working with children to provide a vulnerable sector check and a screening declaration on a repeating cycle.⁵

The Rule of Two

A coach or team official is present for the whole session, in an open and observable setting. There is no one-on-one contact with a minor athlete and no one-to-one electronic messaging with athletes. This follows the Rule of Two as set out by the Coaching Association of Canada, which asks that two responsible adults be present with participants and that interactions stay open, observable and justifiable.⁶

Consent

Written parent or guardian consent is required for every participant under 18, collected before the session. Each athlete is also asked for their own agreement on the day. No athlete has to take part, and no athlete has to say anything. Sitting quietly through a session is a perfectly acceptable way to attend one.

What stays private

What athletes say in the room stays in the room. Coaches receive no reports about individual athletes. There are two exceptions, and they apply to every setting we work in: if there is a risk of serious harm to anyone, or where the law requires a report about a child's safety.

We also ask everyone in the room to keep what is shared private, though we cannot guarantee that every participant will, which is worth knowing before anyone decides how much to share in a group.

By design, no individual health information is collected and no clinical records are kept on any athlete at a team session. That is deliberate: it keeps the service clearly separate from therapy and keeps athletes' information out of a file.

Who delivers them

Sessions are delivered by Leanne Wiese, Registered Psychotherapist (College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario, registration #15522). Leanne is a former national-level and collegiate athlete, an NCCP certified coach, and has spent ten years working with athletes.

Her NCCP certification is a coaching credential and is separate from her registration as a psychotherapist. When she delivers a Team Mindset Session she is working as an educator and skills trainer, not as your team's therapist.

How to book

1. Email leanne@kwtherapy.ca with your sport, the age group, roughly how many athletes, and what the coaching staff would like the session to cover.
2. We will send a written quote and the consent forms, plus whatever screening documentation your club needs.
3. Consent forms come back before the session date. Then we show up at your location.

If a member of your team or a family needs individual support, that is a separate route: the free 15-minute consultation, or the options on our Waterloo Region mental health resources page. If someone is in crisis, call 911, or call or text 9-8-8. Here 24/7 covers this region on 1-844-437-3247.

Common questions

Where these numbers come from

Team Mindset Sessions are group education and skills training, not psychotherapy, and are a different service from the psychotherapy KW Therapy provides. Leanne Wiese is a Registered Psychotherapist with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario, registration #15522, confirmable on the CRPO public register. Page last reviewed 20 July 2026.

Related: Sport performance therapy for individual athletes · About Leanne · All services and fees · Contact