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Submission by Sports Medicine Australia - Victoria on 27 March 2009.
2. Better place sport and physical activity as a key component of the Government's preventative health approach
- Examine Government frameworks to ensure an on-going focus on grassroots and community sport and physical activity.
Government frameworks are currently fragmented, the areas of overlap of sport, recreation and physical activity with health and education is not clearly defined and the health and education areas appear to work in isolation and at times in conflict. Improved consultation across and between sectors and involving key stakeholders in each sector would improve the situation.
- Examine Government programs to increase participation rates in sport and physical activity, including analysis of existing programs.
The most effective way of providing all Australians with quality education that prepares them for lifelong involvement in sport and physical activity (for long term health and enjoyment) it to ensure that they are engaged in safe and appropriate programs as children, and that those programs are conducted within school time and as part of the school curriculum. Physical education is particularly relevant in this environment given that it encompasses a broad range of areas such as sport, physical activity, fitness and recreation etc. Critical to supporting the skills for participation is knowledge of safe practice – injury prevention and injury management. Currently it appears that Government does not have programs that ensure that all individuals have access to either quality education re skills or safe practice. There is an opportunity for Government to support programs such as Smartplay and CleanEdge which complement the work done by Schools and sport and recreation organisations by providing information which supports safe participation.
- Identify and recommend opportunities to break down barriers to participation at junior, adult and senior ages with a view to making it simpler and easier for Australians to participate in the sport or physical activity of their choice, including for women, the disabled and Indigenous people.
Teacher Competency training should include appropriate safety and risk management elements: for conducting lessons and educating students about personal actions to participate safely ie warm up, drink up, gear up etc Community club settings are key to breaking down barriers and supporting preventative health approaches- they provide opportunities for social inclusion and safe participation in a wide range of sport and physical activities. The Federal Government should ensure that all participants (intending and current) have easy access to up to date information on appropriate injury prevention strategies. “Injury is a known barrier to participation and it is estimated that 50% of injuries are preventable” (Safety Guidelines for children and young people in sport and recreation, Sports Medicine Australia (SMA) 2008).Safe participation enables individuals to access the many benefits of sport and recreation including preventing obesity, chronic disease and mental illness and ensuring that they remain connected to their communities. In its policy document “Australian Sport: emerging challenges, new directions” the Rudd Government has stated as one of its aims: “increasing participation rates and making sport part of the preventative health agenda”. It is critical that support (including funding) is given to programs and organisations whose activities support those aims. This could include groups currently engaged in servicing community sport and recreation – from National organisations, state bodies down to local community clubs and as well as peak bodies such as SMA. Additionally, provision of items such as subsidies for volunteers to obtain Sports Trainer/Sports First Aid qualifications, Smartplay material etc for community clubs to implement risk management practises etc would assist with reducing injury risk and its subsequent negative impact on participation. Similarly, grants to subsidize the purchase of Sports First Aid kits would assist volunteer clubs. Barriers may be more effectively reduced with a more coordinated approach by the various government departments. To use a specific example: if the NPHT recommendation “that every school and workplace adopts a nutrition and exercise program” is accepted then peak agencies such as SMA, Sports Dieticians Australia etc should be involved in the development of material and implementation of the program, in partnership with other relevant agencies.
- Recommend strategies to increase the effectiveness of the promotion of sport by the Federal Government to better communicate positive health and activity messages to the broader community.
One strategy would be to support programs such as SMA’s Smartplay (www.smartplay.com.au) which provides easy to understand resources and advice on the premise that safe sport practices can be achieved by building the skills, knowledge and understanding of community sport stakeholders such as administrators, coaches, teachers and players. Positive health and activity messages can be enhanced through communication re safety for both children and adults, this could also include funding the CleanEdge project. This is particularly important when “Statistics show that more than one-quarter of parents/carers of active children aged 5-12 years reported discouraging or preventing children from playing a particular sport (34.7% for boys and 16.6% for girls) because of injury and safety concerns.” (Parental safety concerns – a barrier to sport and physical activity in children?, Soufiane Boufous and Caroline Finch, NSW Injury Risk Management Research Centre, University of NSW and Adrian Bauman, NSW Centre for Physical Activity and Health, University of Sydney, New South Wales, 2004)
3. Strengthen pathways from junior sport to grassroots community sport right through to elite and professional sport.
- Examine the capacity of the system to ensure optimal and efficient delivery of the athlete and coach pathway for any given sport.
System capacity is compromised by the increasing costs of participation – increased fees by local government, cost of uniforms, cost of provision of safe environments etc The pathway is also compromised by the fact that many parents still do not understand the benefits of safe and in many cases - modified activities (for risk management and for skill development) and enrol their children in sometimes inappropriate activities/competitions rather than activities which are both safe and age/developmentally appropriate. The coach and athlete pathways need to be complemented by pathways for other essential elements of the sport ie developing requirements for the provision of safety personnel ie Sports First Aiders and Sports Trainers across all levels of sport is important to ensuring safe practise and appropriate risk management
- Recommend the most effective support and recognition for the coaches, officials, umpires, administrators and volunteers who keep our community clubs alive.
Volunteers need to be provided cost effective, time efficient training (injury prevention, first aid, risk management, coaching, umpiring etc)They need to be provided information that is easy to access (including web access) and is updated regularly (ie Smartplay website in relation to injury prevention/risk management)Subsidies for courses such as first aid/injury prevention (as mentioned previously) would obviously assist as would having nation wide standards and protocols for ‘child protection’. Additionally, having programs such as CleanEdge ( www.cleanedge.com.au ) and Injury Tracker (www.sportsinjurytracker.com.au) as full national programs so there are ‘one stop shops’ would assist volunteers in reducing the time needed to access suitable material.
- Examine how relationships between the Commonwealth Government and National Sporting Organisations, State Sporting Organisations and Australia’s peak representative bodies at key multi-sports competitions may be strengthened to deliver better performance outcomes.
No response
5. Identify opportunities to increase and diversify the funding base for sport through corporate sponsorship, media and any recommended reforms, such as enhancing the effectiveness of the Australian Sports Foundation
Currently it is very difficult to obtain funding for research projects in the area of injury prevention / risk management as they are not classified as a ‘disease’. The effectiveness of the Australian Sports Foundation could be enhanced by extending the types of eligible ‘sport related’ projects to include projects relating to injury prevention and injury risk management in sport and recreation. This could include enabling donations to support risk management education and awareness programs such as Smartplay, or to fund research into risk management strategies to reduce injuries in sport/recreation activities or settings. Donation programs for delivery of sport/physical activity promotion and research should also be eligible for tax deductible donations. a Sports Medicine Australia - Victoria example would be Sports Injury Tracker.
Page last updated: 27 March, 2009