How did your business journey begin?
Outside The Locker Room began in 2015 in Melbourne. Jake Edwards, former AFL player, founded OTLR identifying a lack of conversations and education about mental health in sporting clubs. Jake started sharing his personal story of his own mental health challenges and that's where OTLR was formed. OTLR is now in 4 states across Australia, including Western Australia.
I came to OTLR in December 2020 after working in a partnership role within professional sport. I have had a number of roles throughout my career which have been within sponsorship, marketing and brand awareness, all which have helped in my role at OTLR as WA Program Manager.
What are you working on at the moment?
We are currently working on expanding our program across regional WA and training up facilitators to start educating and making our sessions accessible to everyone. We have also recently introduced a new session focusing on 'Resilience'. We are excited to start running this session which is available to high schools too.
What do you love about being a part of the Spacecubed community?
I am relatively new to the Spacecubed community but have loved coming each week and being inspired in a new modern work environment. I am looking forward to meeting and getting to know more of the members. From someone who has worked from home the last three years, it has been a great change to my week.
Can you share with us one of your favourite success stories?
I have really been enjoying developing our community partnerships and bringing on board OTLR WA ambassadors. It is great to be working with organisations and people who are just as passionate about looking after their communities' mental health. We are planning some exciting initiatives this year including mental health rounds, pop-up stalls at local events and guest speakers.
If you needed to, how have you adapted post COVID-19?
As an organisation coming into the local sporting clubs and schools in four different states, we have had to keep up to date with each state and their changing restrictions. We have been flexible in cancelling and rebooking in sessions as restrictions can suddenly change. We have also adjusted sessions to be able to run these online via zoom for those clubs who have been keen to continue to run their sessions.
If you are interested in either running our program with your local sporting club or school, please check out our website otlr.org.au to find out more, or check out our socials, Instagram - @OTLR, Facebook - @OutsideTheLockerRoom and Youtube - Outside The Locker Room.
Find out how you can position your business alongside change-makers, innovators and entrepreneurs just like Dani by speaking to the Spacecubed team. We have a range of membership options to suit your needs. Discover them here!