The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Back to Sports program educates on youth sports safety
Program brings together American Heart Association, NFL with schools
Parents with young sports enthusiasts in the family can learn a lot from a pilot program being offered to schools through a partnership between the American Heart Association and the National Football League called Back to Sports.
Mentor’ s Brent mo or Elementary School on Feb. 10 hosted a presentation of the program thanks to the efforts of its parentteacher association president Michelle Godek, who just happens to also be a Lake Health athletic trainer who works at Mentor High School.
Godek said she applied for a grant to participate in the program, which educates parents about youth sports safety, in December and is excited to be able to offer it in a primary school.
“I wanted to be able to present it at the elementary school level because, most of the time, these ( programs) are being presented initially at secondary schools,” she said, adding that it ’s important to be aware of the kinds of injuries children face while playing sports, or even just being active, no matter what age they may be.
She covered topics including concussion awareness, heat and hydration, cardiac arrest and CPR and overuse injury prevention.
American Heart Association representative Julie Staf ko, the national program manager for Back to Sports, said the program aims to provide awareness and promote safe physical activity. The Back to Sports program was launched in 2014 and is in its secondround pilot stage, with 100 schools participating across the country.
“The main purpose of the program is to promote physical activity through youth sport participation,” Staf ko said. “By addressing sports safety issues, its goal is to keep sports safe and fun for kids.”
According to a recent survey by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, 76 percent of boys and 70 percent of girls are active in sports, so making sure they play it safe is an issue most parents face, in- cluding Godek, who has a daughter in preschool and another in first grade.
Being one of two athletic trainers stationed at Mentor High School, she’s more informed than most about injuries young athletes typically face, but she said knowing the signs, symptoms and what to do in the event of a child’ s sports injury is important for any parent.
“A lot of parents might not know how to deal with this stuff other than consult i ng Dr. Google,” she said, using a concussion as an example.
“Lots of parents might not even know what to look for or what to do. Like, when is a headache a concussion? That’s important to know.”
Another big benefit of the program is that it provided 10 inflatable CPR dolls with accompanying manuals to be given to parents to take home to become acquainted with CPR, Godek said, adding it’s not meant to lead to CPR cer tification. Rather, these CPR-in-schools training kits are designed to introduce parents “to the very basics” of CPR.