Design One-Day Injury Prevention Workshop

A comprehensive review and scoping of the appropriateness of current injury prevention programmes for youth grassroots sport has started. A specific focus will be on the appropriateness of materials for grass-root coaches to be able to uptake and implement an injury prevention programme to youth players. National specific issues will be addressed at this stage, although the form in which coach education is delivered in each partner nation is similar (e.g. overseen by the national governing sport body and delivered by the regional governing bodies). The partners are developing the content of the workshop with a specific focus on adapting existing materials to suit Youth grassroots sport. Once the content is finalised each partner will adapt the materials to suit individual country requirements including translation into Spanish and Czech and materials placed on this site to download. Following the delivery of the workshop and evaluation of the effectiveness of the workshop and online resources in enhancing knowledge, developing uptake and maintaining adherence to injury prevention programmes, the materials will be revisited and revised based on the feedback. The final downloadable materials for both coach educators and grass-root coaches will be available via the project website.

​

Workshop Delivery of Pilot Materials

Final design of the 1 day workshop and associated materials to be delivered to grass-root coaches will ensure that a consistent delivery is undertaken across differing partner countries. Four one day workshops with circa (n=25) grass-root coaches will be delivered in each country, providing a total sample of 300 coaches. Workshops will include theory around injury prevention need, highlight the importance of understanding growth and maturation, introduce the key risk factors for injury in youth performers and importantly provide practical sessions for coaches to be able to deliver the prevention programme. The post workshop feedback from coaches will help to further develop both the workshop and associated downloadable materials that will be placed on the project website.

​

Product Evaluation - Workshop and Materials

An experienced evaluation research group (Interventions 4 Health – University of Gloucestershire), independent from the product development group; will undertake an evaluation of the workshop and materials. This will involve developing the survey and will require liaising with the product development and delivery team to ensure that appropriate evaluation takes place. A pre and post workshop evaluation of existing and acquired knowledge of the grass-root coaches will be undertaken. The final element of the evaluation is a six month follow up survey after workshop delivery to explore compliance and adherence to the injury prevention programme.

​

Dissemination and Exploitation of Results

Initial dissemination will be to the gatekeepers who are the regional sports governing bodies with further dissemination to the national governing bodies. Members of the project team from each partner institution will present the findings at 2 national and 1 international conference to disseminate as widely as possible. These will include sports science and medicine conferences as well as coach focused conferences. The uploaded material onto the project website will be available for all EU countries to access and other countries across the EU may wish to translate the material for their own use. Sustainability of the project beyond the lifetime of the project will be ensured by uptake of the workshop by sports governing bodies and maintenance of the website for at least 3 years.