Get involved with Special Olympics Maryland Healthy Athletes!
Special Olympics Maryland is currently recruiting for Healthy Athlete Volunteers in all disciplines. If you are interested in becoming a Special Olympics Maryland, please fill out the form linked below. If you have any questions regarding Inclusive Health or Healthy Athletes, please contact Kayla Shields at kshields@somd.org.

How being a Healthy Athletes Volunteer affects your life

• As a healthcare professional, this can help your practice grow
• Can provide you with opportunities to gain confidence working with individuals with ID
• Increasing your own awareness about inclusive health
• Joy and laughter through athlete interaction
• Meaningful involvement in creating a better life for the 6,102 athletes of SOMD

How being a Healthy Athletes Volunteer affect our athletes’ lives

• Educating the athletes about their health and ways to improve
• Helping our athletes gain confidence and independence by taking control over their own health
• Increasing communication skills
• Helping our athletes feel HEARD and UNDERSTOOD.
• Providing opportunities and resources our athletes may not have the access to throughout the year

Learn more about the Healthy Athletes program on SOMD’s website!

What is Healthy Athletes?

The Healthy Athletes program provides free health and wellness screenings to athletes in 7 different disciplines: Healthy Hearing (Audiology), Fit Feet (Podiatry), Special Smiles (Dentistry), Fun Fitness (Physical Therapy), Health Promotion (Preventative Health & Nutrition), Opening Eyes (Optometry), and Strong Minds (Mental Health).
Through university partnerships, Healthy Athletes is also a training program for future medical professionals. 
Special Olympics Healthy Athletes is designed to help Special Olympics athletes improve their health and fitness. The ultimate goal of Healthy Athletes is to improve each athlete’s ability to train and compete in Special Olympics as well as in life.