Press Releases
On Friday, February 5, 2016, MomsTEAM Institute Executive Director Brooke de Lench and Senior Editor and Director of Research Lindsey Barton Straus accepted the award of an NCAA-Department of Defense Mind Matters Challenge education grant during a luncheon at the NCAA national headquarters in Indianapolis. 
MomsTEAM and the other five winners of education grants recognized by the NCAA and Department of Defense were joined at the ceremony by eight winners of the NCAA-DoD Mind Matters Research Challenge, each of which will receive a $400,000 award to fund research designed to improve the understanding of how to spur changes in the culture surrounding concussion drawn from a field of 22 finalists announced in July 2015. (to learn more about the research challenge winners, click here)
A joint NCAA-DOD initiative announced in November 2014, the Mind Matters Challenge includes $7 million in funding focuses on two important areas related to concussion: Changing Attitudes about Concussions in Young and Emerging Adults (a research challenge); and Educational Programs Targeting Young and Emerging Adults (an educational programs challenge).
The day-long event included an afternoon session in which de Lench and representatives of the other 13 winners made 5 minute PowerPoint presentations and answered questions about their projects.
With the grant funds MomsTEAM is creating a multi-media concussion education intervention designed to create an environment in which student-athletes are not penalized, ostracized, or criticized for honestly reporting their own concussion symptoms as well as those of teammates but are actually encouraged to do so.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MomsTEAM Institute's Executive Director, Brooke de Lench, announced today the election of Ben Utecht to the Institute's Board of Directors.
Mr. Utecht is a former NFL tight end and Super Bowl champion with the Indianapolis Colts. In 2009, his career was cut short by a fifth diagnosed concussion suffered during a pre-season practice with the Cincinnati Bengals. The concussion rendered him unconscious for 10 minutes and left Utecht with lingering concussion symptoms, including memory loss.
Since retiring from the NFL, Utecht has become a passionate and tireless advocate for raising awareness about sports-related concussions, and for supporting research about concussion and traumatic brain injury. In April 2014, the American Academy of Neurology and the American Brain Foundation honored him with their Public Leadership in Neurology Award. In testimony before a U.S. Senate committee in June 2014, Utecht made an impassioned plea for increased funding of brain injury research. He now serves as a national spokesperson for the AAN, while pursuing a post-football career as a recording artist and motivational speaker.
"I am excited that Ben has agreed to join our Board," said de Lench, "and I look forward to working with him, both as a Board member and as member of the MomsTEAM Board of Advisors, as the Institute develops the comprehensive set of best youth sports health and safety practices and standards that will be the centerpiece of our innovative SmartTeams ™ program.” "His is a cautionary tale showing what can happen if concussion management protocols are not followed."
"I am honored to join the MomsTeam Institute Board of Directors," said Utecht. “My life has been impacted by traumatic brain injury and brain disease, and I appreciate MomsTEAM and Brooke's longtime commitment to making contact and collision sports safer. MomsTeam is one of the most important players in the field of youth sport and concussion safety. It is a great privilege to help this organization advance that cause."
Utecht lives in Minnesota with his wife, Karyn, and their three daughters.
About MomsTEAM and MomsTEAM Institute
Launched in August 2000, MomsTeam.com has grown over the years, both in terms of content and reputation, to more than 10,000 + pages of information for youth sports parents and has become the most trusted source of sports parenting information, widely recognized as one of, if not the, top websites of its kind.
MomsTeam Institute, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization launched in November 2013 to continue and expand on MomsTEAM's fifteen-year mission of providing comprehensive, well-researched information to youth sports parents, coaches, athletic trainers, and other health care professionals about all aspects of the youth sports experience.
About Brooke de Lench
Ms. de Lench is Executive Director of MomsTEAM Institute, and Founder and Publisher of MomsTEAM.com. Recognized as a visionary thought leader in youth sports safety and a pioneer in concussion education for the past fifteen years, Ms. de Lench is Producer/Director/Creator of the critically acclaimed documentary "The Smartest Team: Making High School Football Safer" (PBS). An active journalist and blogger for MomsTEAM, Ms. de Lench is the author of "Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports" (Harper Collins 2006), and a sought-after lecturer, keynote speaker, and symposium panelist on a wide range of youth sport topics. For Brooke's full biography, click here.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONCORD, MA, January 13, 2015
MomsTEAM Institute, a leading youth sports safety advocacy, education and watchdog non-profit organization, has been named as a "pioneer organization" to implement the International Safeguards for Children in Sport in the US, in a global initiative coordinated by UNICEF UK.
Based on a set of child safeguarding standards drafted in 2012 by a working group of international youth, sport and development organizations, coordinated by UNICEF UK, with support from UNICEF, and based on the work of the Child Protection in Sport Unit (CPSU) of the United Kingdom's National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty To Children (NSPCC), the Safeguards were formally launched at the Beyond Sport summit in Johannesburg, South Africa in October 2014.
MomsTEAM is among a select group of 40 sport and development organizations from across the globe working with UNICEF UK to further develop, implement and test the safeguards by making them an integral component of MomsTeam Institute's SmartTeamsTM program, a series of best health and safety practices it is currently developing with a group of U.S.-based experts for implementation by sports programs across the country.
Four Goals
The Safeguards aim to:
- help create a safe sporting environment for children wherever they participate and at whatever level;
- provide a benchmark to assist sports providers and funders to make informed decisions about child safety in sport;
- promote good practiced and challenge practiced that are harmful to children; and
- provide clarity on safeguarding children to all involved in sport.
"MomsTEAM Institute and I are honored to be joining such an important coalition of organizations from around the world in working to safeguard children in sport," said the Institute's Executive Director, Brooke de Lench. "I have enormous respect for the work that UNICEF and the CSPC have been doing, and have long advocated for ratification by the United States of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which the Safeguards are designed to support in the context of youth sports."
Unlike almost every other advanced country in the world, the United States lacks any national standards or programs safeguarding the safety of children in sports, de Lench noted. "Our aim, by partnering with UNICEF UK, and in modelling our SmartTeamsTM program on the
International Safeguards for Children in Sport, is to fill that vacuum through voluntary implementation by sports organizations across the country, which will also provide the accountability and transparency which is currently lacking."
"From working with parents, coaches, administrators, and other youth sports stakeholders in every state over the past fifteen years, I know that they share my belief that protecting the psychological, emotional, physical and sexual safety of children in sports should always be our number one priority. Implementing the International Safeguards for Children in Sport will help us make that goal a reality."
Liz Twyford, UNICEF UK Sports Programme Specialist and coordinator of the Safeguarding Initiative, said: "All children have the right to participate in sport in a safe and enjoyable environment; it is a crucial part of a happy, healthy childhood. These Safeguards aim to enable everyone involved in sport to stop and think about the risks to children, and have appropriate measures in place to prevent these risks from becoming reality"
"We are really pleased to be working with the MomsTEAM Institute to further this work in the US, particularly given their longstanding leadership in this sector, and look forward to working together to make sport safer for children everywhere."
About MomsTEAM
MomsTeam Institute, Inc. a Massachusetts non-profit organization is an advocacy, educational and watchdog group for young athletes with a mission of providing youth sports stakeholders with comprehensive, practical information and best practice resources to keep all children safe physically, psychologically, and sexually while playing sports.
MomsTeam Institute provides a comprehensive well-researched online information resource. Its website, MomsTEAM.com, which was launched in 2000 by a group of leading experts, has become the most trusted source of youth sports information, widely recognized as the top website of its kind for athletes, sports parents, coaches, athletic trainers, and other health care professionals about all aspects of the youth sports experience.
SmartTeamsTM
The SmartTeamsTM program, which grew out of a set of concussion management best practices called The Six PillarsTM featured in the MomsTEAM-produced PBS documentary, "The Smartest Team: Making High School Football Safer" is based on a set of comprehensive, sport- and issue-specific, and easy-to-understand "best practice" standards of care templates and checklists being developed by the Institute and its Board of Advisors, covering all aspects of youth sports health and safety, from injury prevention and risk reduction, and nutrition and hydration guidelines, to preventing all forms of physical, psychological and sexual abuse. Programs adopting such best practices will be eligible for designation as a SmartTeam. MomsTEAM Institute will be selecting pilot programs in six sports in 2015 to test the Smart Team approach and implement the International Safeguards for Children in Sport, and will be seeking funding from corporations, foundations, and allied non-profits interested in safeguarding sports-active children to underwite the program.
About Brooke de Lench
Ms. de Lench is Executive Director of MomsTEAM Institute, and Founder and Publisher of MomsTEAM.com. Recognized as a visionary thought leader in youth sports safety and a pioneer in concussion education for the past fifteen years, Ms. de Lench is Producer/Director/Creator of the critically acclaimed PBS documentary "The Smartest Team: Making High School Football Safer". An active journalist and blogger for MomsTEAM, Ms. de Lench is the author of "Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports" (Harper Collins), and a sought-after lecturer, keynote speaker, and symposium panelist on a wide range of youth sport topics. For Brooke's full biography, click here.
For a full copy of the International Safeguards for Children in Sport developed by the International Safeguarding Children In Sport Working Group, click here.
For more information on the UN Convention On The Rights of the Child, click here.
Contact:
Cindy Mercer
cindymercer@trinitysports.biz
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Concord, MA, January 7, 2015. MomsTEAM Institute's Executive Director, Brooke de Lench, announced today the election of Dr. James MacDonald to the Institute's Board of Directors.
Dr. MacDonald is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Family Medicine at The Ohio State University (OSU) and a Pediatric Sports Medicine Specialist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Team Physician for Ohio Dominican University and Bexley (OH) High School, and a member of USA Swimming’s Sports Medicine Task Force, Dr. MacDonald is an Associate Editor and blogger for the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine(CJSM)(www.cjsmblog.com) and for the Journal of Dance Medicine and Science(JDMS). Board Certified in Family Medicine, with a Certificate of Added Qualification in Sports Medicine, Dr. MacDonald is a Fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine, a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, and a member of MomsTEAM Institute's Board of Advisors. (For Dr. MacDonald's full biography, click here)
"I am excited that Jim has agreed to join the Board. I have had the distinct pleasure of getting to know and working with Jim over the past several years and have come to believe that there are few who bring to the field of pediatric sports medicine the same rare combination of breadth of medical knowledge and passion that Jim possesses as an advocate for youth sports safety," said de Lench. "For proof one need look no further than Jim's excellent presentation last fall at our SmartTeams Play Safe summit at his alma mater, Harvard Medical School."
"I look forward to working with Jim, both as a Board member and as member of the MomsTEAM Board of Advisors, as the Institute works over the coming months and years to develop the comprehensive set of best youth sports health and safety practices and standards which will be the centerpiece of our innovative SmartTeams™ program," de Lench said.
"I am honored to be asked to join the MomsTeam Institute Board of Directors," said MacDonald. "MomsTeam is one of the most important players on the field of youth sport safety. It is a great privilege to help this organization advance that cause."
About MomsTEAM and MomsTEAM Institute
Launched in August 2000, MomsTeam.com has grown over the years, both in terms of content and reputation, to more than 10,000 + pages of information for youth sports parents and has become the most trusted source of sports parenting information, widely recognized as one of, if not the, top websites of its kind.
MomsTeam Institute, Inc. is a Massachusetts non-profit corporation formed in November 2013 to continue and expand on MomsTEAM's fifteen-year mission of providing comprehensive, well-researched information to youth sports parents, coaches, athletic trainers, and other health care professionals about all aspects of the youth sports experience.
About Brooke de Lench
Ms. de Lench is Executive Director of MomsTEAM Institute, and Founder and Publisher of MomsTEAM.com. Recognized as a visionary thought leader in youth sports safety and a pioneer in concussion education for the past fifteen years, Ms. de Lench is Producer/Director/Creator of the critically acclaimed documentary "The Smartest Team: Making High School Football Safer" (PBS). An active journalist and blogger for MomsTEAM, Ms. de Lench is the author of "Home Team Advantage: The Critical Role of Mothers in Youth Sports" (Harper Collins 2006), and a sought-after lecturer, keynote speaker, and symposium panelist on a wide range of youth sport topics. For Brooke's full biography, click here.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Concord, MA, September 8, 2014: Best practices for concussion safety education will be among the topics addressed at the groundbreaking youth sports health and safety SmartTeams Play SafeTM: Protecting the Health & Safety of the Whole Child In Youth Sports By Implementing Best Practices summit on Monday, September 15, 2014 at Harvard Medical School in Boston, sponsored by MomsTEAM Institute, a leading youth sports health and safety think tank and watchdog group.
In advance of the summit, the Institute, producer of the PBS documentary, "The Smartest Team: Making High School Football Safer", offers the following checklist of what experts say all sports parents need to know about sports-related concussions:
1. The signs and symptoms of concussion:
- symptoms (headache, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, visual problems, sensitivity to light/noise, balance problems);
- physical signs (loss of consciousness, unsteady gait/balance problems/dazed facial expression)
- impaired brain function (confusion, feeling mentally "foggy," feeling slowed down, difficulty concentrating and remembering a/k/a amnesia);
- abnormal behavior (change in personality, irritability, sadness, nervousness, more emotional, depression); and/or
- sleep disturbances (insomnia, drowsiness, sleeping less than usual, sleeping more than usual).
2. The importance of encouraging athletes to honestly self-report concussion symptoms and creating an environment in which athletes feel safe in self-reporting.
3. The importance of watching for delayed symptoms, including behavioral changes, and concentration and memory problems, which may only appear hours or even days after a strong blow to the body or head during practice or game action. Delayed symptom onset is especially common among children and teens.
4. The need to regularly and close monitor athletes during the first 24-48 hours after diagnosed concussion for signs of deteriorating mental condition suggesting a more serious brain injury which requires immediate hospitalization;
5. The importance of cognitive and physical rest in the first few days after concussion, including staying home from school;
6. The importance of a gradual return to school (and the possible need for academic accommodations)
7. The importance of being off all academic accommodations and completing a step-by-step, symptom-limited, exercise program before a concussed athlete should be allowed to return to sports;
8. The dangers of continuing to play with concussion symptoms and returning to play too soon, before your child or teen's still-developing brain has fully healed, including increased risk of adverse short- and long-term, and even catastrophic injury.
9. The need for more conservative management of concussions in children and teens as compared to college-age athletes and adults.
The SmartTeams Play SafeTM summit will feature a series of educational, "TED-talk"-style presentations by nationally-recognized clinicians, researchers and youth sports safety advocates. In sharp contrast to symposiums, which focus on identifying the problems the nation confronts in making youth sports safer, the SmartTeams Play SafeTM summit will put knowledge into action, offering youth sports programs a set of concrete steps that they can take to help young athletes play safe by being smart.
The day-long event will take a holistic approach to youth sports safety which addresses not just a child's physical safety, but emotional, psychological and sexual safety as well, and will show how, by following best practices, youth sports programs can stem the rising tide of injuries that have become an all-too-common and unfortunate by-product of today's hyper-competitive, overspecialized, and over-commercialized youth sports environment.
The summit will also mark the launch of pilot programs in six communities around the country - each coordinated by a university-based athletic training educator, clinician and researcher,- designed to test MomsTEAM's innovative SmartTeamTM program. Modeled on the community-centric approach to improving youth sports safety highlighted in "The Smartest Team", the program will award SmartTeam status to youth sports organizations which have demonstrated a commitment to minimizing the risk of physical, psychological and sexual injury to young athletes by implementing a comprehensive set of health and safety best practices, providing safety-conscious sports parents a level of assurance that they have made health and safety an important priority, not to be sacrificed at the altar of team or individual success.
"While virtually every state in the country now requires that parents and athletes receive some basic concussion safety information as a condition to participation, best practices for concussion safety education require far more than can fit on an 8 ½ by 11 sheet of paper," says Brooke de Lench, Executive Director of MomsTEAM Institute, and producer of "The Smartest Team" documentary.
For more information about the conference, visit http://www.smartteamsplaysafe.com/.
About MomsTEAM Institute and MomsTEAM.com
Launched in August 2000, MomsTeam.com has grown over the years, both in terms of content and reputation, to more than 10,000 + pages of information for youth sports parents and has become the most trusted source of sports parenting information, widely recognized as one of, if not the, top websites of its kind.
MomsTeam Institute, Inc. is a Massachusetts non-profit corporation formed in November 2013 to continue and expand on MomsTEAM's fourteen-year mission of providing comprehensive, well-researched information to youth sports parents, coaches, athletic trainers, and other health care professionals about all aspects of the youth sports experience.
Media Contacts:Sheila M. GreenOffice: (617) 337-9514Cell: (339) 224-3914Email: sgreen@thecastlegrp.com
Boston Summit to Highlight Youth Sports Safety Best Practices
- Brooke de Lench, producer, THE SMARTEST TEAM: Making High School Football Safer (PBS) and author of Home Team Advantage.
- Brian Hainline, MD, Chief Medical Officer, National Collegiate Athletic Association
- Douglas Casa, Ph.D, ATC, FACSM, FNATA, professor, Department of Kinesiology and Chief Operating Officer of the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut
- Rosalind Wiseman, best-selling author of Queen Bees and Wannabes and Masterminds & Wingmen
- Lyle Micheli, MD, Clinical Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Harvard Medical School; O'Donnell Family Professor of Orthopedic Sports Medicine and Director, Division of Sports Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital
- Jim MacDonald, MD, M.P.H., FASFP, FACSM, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics and family medicine at Ohio State University, and a pediatric sports medicine specialist at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio
- Joe Ehrman, former player, National Football League, and author of InSide Out Coaching
- Neehru Jayanthi, MD, USPTA, associate professor, family medicine and orthopedic surgery & rehabilitation, Loyola Stritch School of Medicine
- Sport-related concussion best practices
- The evolving landscape of youth sports safety
- Injury prevention strategies in youth sports
- Reducing injury risk in youth football
- Cognitive rest and return to learn
- Gender influences on sport-related concussions and outcomes
- Preventing sudden death in young athletes
- Cost-effective youth sports injury prevention
- Overuse injuries, early specialization, and burnout
- Bullying, emotional and psychological injury prevention
- InSideOut Coaching: transforming the lives of young athletes
- Preventing sexual abuse of youth athletes
- Role of game officials in injury prevention
- The power of the permit in youth sports safety
About MomsTEAM Institute and MomsTEAM.com
Launched in August 2000, MomsTeam.com has grown over the years, both in terms of content and reputation, to the point that it now has 10,000 + pages of information for youth sports parents and has become the most trusted source of sports parenting information, widely recognized as one of, if not the, top websites of its kind.
MomsTeam Institute, Inc. (“the Institute”) is a Massachusetts non-profit corporation which has been formed to continue and expand on MomsTEAM’s fourteen-year mission of providing comprehensive, well-researched information to youth sports parents, coaches, athletic trainers, and other health care professionals about all aspects of the youth sports experience. MomsTEAM Institute will be MomsTEAM 2.0.
Our mission: Building on the vast knowledge and experience MomsTEAM Founder and Publisher Brooke de Lench and her staff have gained in writing, reporting and educating on youth sports health and safety and parenting issues, and working with national organizations, experts, and individual stakeholders over the past 14 years, the Institute’s initial focus will be in three areas: knowledge transfer; establish best practices; award eligible programs “Smart Team” status.
