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Blog: How Sports Safety Benefits Our CommunityPosted by: Lindsay Hansen at Apr 19, 2011 12:00 AM CDT Keywords: Education
As Safe Kids’ Program Manager for recreational safety, I am so encouraged by the many organizations, experts and community leaders who care about keeping kids not only active—but safe. More than 80 of our local coalitions across the country are holding free sports safety injury prevention clinics for parents and youth coaches. Holly Alway, coordinator of Safe Kids West Michigan, talks with us about the importance of sports safety in her own community. Read on and learn more! From Holly: Local sports are an integral part of the Muskegon, MI community where I live. Sixty percent of our 44,390 youth (ages 5-17) are involved with school sports teams, or recreational sports teams. We love cheering for the home team on Saturday afternoons and we enjoy spending time together at sports events. Unfortunately, Muskegon County is no exception to the national trends of significant increases in sports-related injuries. Brain injury, devastating heat illness and sudden cardiac arrest are just a few of the serious conditions our children have suffered on the playing field. During the past three years, 1,458 children ages 5-14 were treated for sports-related injuries at Muskegon area emergency rooms Safe Kids West Michigan’s goal is to help keep our community’s children safe and physically active for a lifetime. As the Safe Kids coalition coordinator, I’ve learned that many sports-related injuries are preventable and treatable if we take the appropriate precautions and if we have access to the appropriate health care professionals. We at Safe Kids West Michigan are honored to participate in the 2011 Sports Safety program. Together with our community partners, we’ll be presenting sports safety clinics and Pre-Participation Evaluation clinics. By providing essential information to coaches, parents and athletes, we’ll help them prevent many injuries and lessen the severity of the injuries that do occur. When our young athletes can stay in the game--because we as parents, coaches and community leaders and educators are practicing prevention, I think everyone wins. |
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