March
is ending and National Athletic Training Month (NATM) has come and gone for
another year. As NATM ends, Youth Sports
Safety Month (YSSM) begins. This
awareness focus provides a continued opportunity to help youth and adolescents
participate in sports safely. NATM
focused on appropriate medical coverage and care for athletes by advocating for
athletic trainers, particularly at secondary schools, while YSSM provides a
broader focus in youth sports safety. One organization working to promote YSSM is
the Sports Trauma and Overuse Prevention Sports Injuries campaign. Better known as STOP Sports Injuries, an
initiative started by the American
Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine and other key groups in 2007,
has worked to prevent injuries of all kinds in young athletes.
To
learn more about what STOP Sports Injuries is doing to promote YSSM, check out THIS
link. The group is encouraging everyone
to get involved in YSSM by holding
your own event, getting involved in their photo
contest and participating in their sports safety tweet chats. Chats are scheduled for April 10th and April
24th. You can get
involved at #SportsSafety, check out
their twitter page
for more information. These chats are
great ways to connect with experts and other parents who are concerned about
protecting their children.
STOP
Sports Injuries is also great for expanding the ideas of safety and prevention
beyond the traumatic (and potentially catastrophic) concerns of concussions,
exertional heat illness, and sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). They have resources that bring attention to
minimizing overuse injuries in youth athletes, female athlete triad, and sports
nutrition as well. Resources are
available based on specific sports, specific issues and for specific
stakeholders ranging from parents, athletes, coaches, and health care
providers. For more information, check
out the Sports
Injury Prevention section of their website.
STOP
Sports Injuries is not the only group does work regularly to make youth sports
safer on some level. If you are a
regular reader of this blog, you know A4IA
continues to work to educate high school athletes through the ASA® program and
other public advocacy. The continued
focus on youth sports safety should continue to educate us all on how we can
allow children to take advantage of the positives that come from participating
in sports while minimizing the negatives of chronic injuries and the potential
for long-term disability. According to recent
information published by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) the
awareness and education is beginning to have a positive effect; for athletes
between the age of 5 and 14, sports injuries decreased 12% between 2000 and
2010.
Some
of the other organizations that have gotten involved in the youth sports safety
education mission include:
This
list is not an all-inclusive list of professional organizations and non-profits
that have had some role in improving youth sports safety, but it is a sampling
of some of the major national organizations.
As always, you are encouraged to get involved in your local community
with your local organizations. With a
little help from the Internet, you may find there is a non-profit in your area
that is working to improve safety in one way or another. If you find something, find a way to get
involved and make a change in your community.
Submitted
by Heather L. Clemons, MS, MBA, ATC
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