Swimming Australia (SA) is the peak governing body for swimming in Australia, from community participation through to elite performance. Swimming Australia’s High Performance (HP) vision is to win when it matters to inspire a nation.

To achieve this vision, our aim is to cultivate a High-Performance culture across our business and engage a team who are not only excited about our ambitions, but aligned to our Values of Courage, Unity and Excellence. We strive to have an operational and support team that is highly engaged, serious about leadership, and working through a lens of continuous improvement.

We are looking for a Performance Psychology Lead to provide national leadership, coordination and expert advice across performance psychology services within Swimming Australia’s High-Performance system. The primary objective of the engagement is to coordinate performance psychology services with a shared approach to optimise athlete performance within open water and pool environments by underpinning competition ready plans, coaching practices, and system alignment to enhance podium ready performance while safeguarding athlete and coach wellbeing.

What You’ll Do

• Collaborating with the National Head Coach, Open Water Program Lead and Para Program Head Coach to identify strategic priorities and develop a national plan to ensure High Performance coaches actively partner with performance psychology providers in the daily performance environment (DPE)
• Convening and facilitating regular national Performance Psychology meetings to support alignment, develop capability and create learning opportunities
• Coordinating NIN providers to ensure Competition Ready Plans are developed, rehearsed and operationalised ahead of annual benchmark events
• Designing and delivering evidence-based psychological skills curricula for Coach and Performance Psychology workshops
• Contribute expert input into athlete and coach wellbeing frameworks and resources in consultation with the Athlete Wellbeing Lead
• Support key campaign staff to ensure structures and processes are in place to optimise athlete performance & health and well-being.

What You Bring

• A minimum of five (5) years’ experience in High Performance sport with proven delivery in interdisciplinary High Performance teams to embed psychology services with coaches and athletes
• Demonstrated ability to lead and influence High Performance practitioners to achieve elite outcomes and deliver superior levels of service in an unpredictable and challenging environment
• Demonstrated capacity to provide timely, compelling, accurate and concise advice to support decision-making for internal and external stakeholders
• Proven ability to use exceptional analytical, planning, strategic thinking, organisational, judgement & decision making and problem solving skills under pressure
• Strong communication (both verbal and written), negotiation and interpersonal skills
• Demonstrated high level understanding of the standards and demands on High Performance athletes

Service Commitment

This role is contracted on a flexible delivery model aligned to the High Performance calendar, equivalent to 48 days per year.

Swimming Australia, we celebrate diversity and champion inclusion. We believe innovation comes from different perspectives, and we’re committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued and empowered.

We are also committed to promoting and protecting the safety and wellbeing of children and young people through our safeguarding children practices. Candidates should be aware this includes a number of screening processes during the recruitment and selection process to ensure we uphold this commitment. All employees at Swimming Australia are required to hold a valid employee Working with Children and a satisfactory criminal history check.