Abstract
Soccer (also known as football) is a widely popular sport that sees significant injury to its players. The Injury Prevention Program SafeClub was developed in New South Wales, Australia, to assist community soccer clubs in adopting accessible and useful risk management practices. The program aims to make soccer safe through inclusive procedures that analyze and manage injury risks. The program consists of three, two hour training sessions that utilize adult-based learning principles. These sessions center around a variety of modes of knowledge translation that access all learning styles. Participants are afforded the opportunity to practice the learning gained during SafeClub training sessions. The SafeClub program, with its foundation in research and framework, is offered here as an exemplary practice.
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Acknowledgments
The author would like to express sincere appreciation to the key informant for this case study: Kristy Abbot of Youthsafe in Putney, NSW, Australia—whose consultation made this project possible.
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Appendices
BRIO Model: SafeClub
Group Served: Community-level soccer clubs .
Goal: To prevent head, spine, and other injuries for soccer players.
Background | Resources | Implementation | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
An increased interest in examining head and spinal cord injuries in soccer Early consultations by YouthSafe and Northern Sydney Central Coastal Health (NSCCH) confirmed gaining interest-specific information was considered valuable by most communities SafeClub was founded in 2002 Pilot study in 2003 aimed to assist clubs to develop and implement an in-depth sports safety plan based on a risk management training SafeClub is a training program based on a 5-stage risk management model aimed to assist community clubs to reduce injury risk | During development, principal stakeholders included New South Wales Injuries Committee, Soccer New South Wales, and injury prevention professionals YouthSafe and NSCCH currently share equal ownership of SafeClub intellectual property, as well as the role in delivering and implementing SafeClub strategies IRMRC performed intensive evaluation of SafeClub after its initial pilot program | Uses adult-based learning principles adapted from work and safety organizations The program consists of three training sessions of 2 h per session Practices most effective include consideration of the wide variety of barriers affecting club administrators Demonstrates that risk management is simple Implementation is facilitated by the devotion of volunteering club administrators to their individual soccer club Continual evaluation made on the implementation of SafeClub occurs regularly using process evaluations | Success in SafeClub has been and will remain a measure of increased safety activities among community sports clubs as a result of SafeClub training The 2-year evaluation of SafeClub examines changes in sports safety activities and changes that clubs make The results of the SafeClub evaluation suggest that SafeClub achieved its aim in assisting community soccer clubs to improve their sports activities Effectiveness of SafeClub training did possess one of the unanticipated positive outcomes, which is in the long-term, sustainable results produced |
Life-Space Model : SafeClub
Sociocultural: civilization/community | Interpersonal: primary and secondary relationships | Physical environments: where we live | Internal states: biochemical/genetic and means of coping |
|---|---|---|---|
Awareness raising through video clips at SafeClub information/training sessions Use of soccer community to promote risk management techniques in soccer practices and games Multifaceted strategy that includes soccer club administrators | Relationship between YouthSafe, Northern Sidney Central Coast Health (NSCCH), and IRMRC to increase knowledge and improve techniques to prevent and target injuries in soccer Relationship between club administrators and SafeClub trainers through contractual obligation to adhere to the safety techniques promoted by SafeClub Relationship between club administrators, players, coaches, and referees to adhere to SafeClub contracts established during SafeClub training | Endurance sport Contact between players Contact between player and soccer ball because head is voluntarily used to control and advance the ball Risk management encourages club administrators to consider and modify the physical environment (soccer field and surroundings) as a means to increase safety practices in soccer Adoption of individualized action plans created by club administrators | Risk management as a means to increase safety practices in soccer Empowerment of club administrators and in turn coaches, players, and referees through risk management training Strengthening relationships among key stakeholders in the game to enhance communication and prevent injury in soccer |
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Singla, D. (2020). SafeClub: An Effective Soccer Injury Prevention Program. In: Volpe, R. (eds) Casebook of Traumatic Injury Prevention. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27419-1_6
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