Get your head in the game – sports concussion awareness and training Erasmus Project

Project Title

Get your head in the game – sports concussion awareness and training

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Health and wellbeing; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The focus of the project is supporting educators and providing continuous professional development to VET teachers, trainers and mentors.

The context for the project is the overwhelming need for professional development in the area of concussion awareness training and management for VET teachers involved in programmes related to health, medical and sport and exercise. Concussion is not currently taught in any kind of detail to the very professionals that will end up encountering it contributing to a significant knowledge gap in terms of understanding and management of concussion on a broader European and global scale.

The consortium is comprised of six partners; Letterkenny Institute of Technology (Ireland), the International Concussion and Head Injury Research Foundation (UK), Oxford Brookes University (UK), the University of Southern Denmark (Denmark), La Trobe University (Australia) and Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology (Ireland). Each member of the consortium brings a unique expertise to ensure a complementary partnership that will enable the successful completion of the project.

Addressing current and misinformation around the mechanisms, duration, awareness, treatment and complexity of the ‘invisible injury’, this project is the first step to developing a combined continental approach to cataloguing, educating and quantifying the issue of concussion in a recreation and sporting context.

This lack of training and awareness of concussion means that future sports personnel and health professionals will be ill equipped to diagnose and treat concussions that they will undoubtedly be faced with on numerous occasions throughout their careers. A lack of understanding of concussion leads to fear and many individuals turning away from sport and physical activity due to misinformation.

The overall aim of this highly innovative project is to develop an in depth understanding of the definition and implications of concussion in a sport and exercise setting by equipping VET educators with an innovative pedagogy guide (O2), informed by the findings of a systematic literature review (O1) and module (O3) that will provide them with the knowledge and materials to develop concussion specific training that will be influenced by health professionals and experts in the field.

The main objectives of this landmark project are;
– to upskill VET educators (target group) in the area of concussion in training, awareness and management and to empower them with the tools to incorporate this type of concussion-specific-training into their programmes
– to dissipate the uncertainty and fear surrounding concussion in contact sports by making resources, current research and information available to the public via the online Module (O3). The project team believe that by informing society on concussion in sports they would expect to see a decrease in misinformation and an increase in the amount of people engaging with sport and recreational activity thus contributing to a healthier population.

The project methodology and activities have been designed to specifically meet the needs identified in our target group (VET providers). Two LTTAs are scheduled to ensure the design, content and functionality of the project outputs are relevant for the intended audience. Three multiplier events are planned to ensure wide dissemination of the project outcomes and outputs. Between the different activities approximately 500 particpants will be directly involved but the wider dissemination is anticipated to reach over 100,000.

Due to the breadth of the project, the project outputs will automatically be applicable to a large scope of local, national, international stakeholders and have an impact across boundaries due to the cumulative outputs and projected impacts with the project.

From an international perspective, WHO (2018) indicate that implementation of both the EU Physical activity guidelines and the Physical Activity Strategy of the WHO has progressed. Most countries reported data from national systems for monitoring and surveillance of physical activity, but the knowledge gap appears where there is minimal tracking of injury incidence from member states following this increase in physical activity. This point is particularly pertinent as while we may have an increased involvement across the continent, we still have no recorded surveillance data of the type and frequency of injury rates.

In summary the project is a multi-national and multi-disciplinary approach to developing educational materials for VET providers focussed on the area of concussion education and awareness. The project will develop three key outputs, which will have a cascading effect on the professional development of VET providers and will ultimately lead to better training to support those that may encounter concussion-related injuries in their future careers.

Project Website

https://concussioninsport.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 319767 Eur

Project Coordinator

GALWAY-MAYO INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY & Country: IE

Project Partners

• La Trobe University
• LETTERKENNY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
• THE INTERNATIONAL CONCUSSION AND HEAD INJURY RESEARCH FOUNDATION LIMITED
• SYDDANSK UNIVERSITET
• OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY