Switch the Play Foundation is the UK's only charity dedicated to supporting all sportspeople - irrespective of their sport, background or stage of their sporting career - with their successful transition into life outside of sport. 

We exist because there is a hidden majority in sport. In striving for Olympic and Paralympic success or the highest performances in professional sport, fans, sporting organisations, and brands expect a huge amount from athletes. They make huge sacrifices to pursue a sporting goal. They put their bodies on the line, give up careers and make huge personal compromises for medals or sporting success that benefit the nation as well as the athletes themselves. Life beyond sport can be really tough without support in place. 

The charity delivers the following services:

1.  Learning and Development Programmes - covering a range of life skills topics to support the personal development of sportspeople including self-awareness, emotional resilience, personal branding, maximising your network, and transferable skills. These are delivered individually to clubs and sporting organisations or through programmes that take specific cohorts of athletes through group based sessions as well as personalised mentoring and coaching.

2. Switched On community for individual sportspeople. This includes:

• Personalised on-boarding process structured around the Athlete Transition Bridge getting to know the person and build a personal action plan for them.
• Mental Wellbeing support - information and resources to promote and support positive mental wellbeing for sportspeople. This includes an emotional support helpline.
• Personalised one to one coaching or mentoring support for every member.
• Switched On Inspires, a one stop platform of information, support and resources to help sportspeople prepare for life outside of sport.
• Career Pathways support offering access to business mentors, experience days, work experience, shadowing and other opportunities to enable sportspeople to explore their options and put a plan in place in line with a chosen path.

3. Social impact programmes - helping sportspeople to identify their social purpose aligned to their interests and passions and supporting them to have a positive impact on society. This is via masterclasses, through one-to-one support as part of Switched On, or research projects where we have been able to take an evidence-based approach to inform social impact programmes.

Our help matters because:

- 52% of those who played sport professionally reported financial difficulties in the five years after stopping playing.

- 54% of former professional sportspeople have had concerns about their mental or emotional wellbeing since retiring, with 3 in 5 of those who have an issue with their mental/emotional wellbeing not seeking help.

- A recent survey of Olympic and Paralympic world class funded athletes found that 60% don’t feel prepared for life after sport and 55% don’t know where to turn to.