Concussion/TBI Work Group Teleconference Meeting – Minutes

June 7, 2012

1:30pm -3:00 pm

Present: Loretta Bernard (York), Tracy Dahms (York), Silvana Farrace-Perry (York), Sue Connell (Hamilton), Heather Quance (KFL&A), Matt MacLeod (Grey-Bruce), Lorraine Gravelle (Algoma), Carolyn Jones (SMDHU), Cindy Kirkpatrick (H&PEC), Angela Merrett (Toronto), Sheree Shapiro (Toronto), Lori Pinkerton (Durham)

1. Review of Agenda/Minutes

  • No additions. Minutes taken by York Region
  1. ProposedConcussionLegislation (Bill 39) The Education Amendment Act (Concussions), 2012 and Healthy Schools Working Table that Loretta has been invited to

Info from email Loretta received:As you may be aware, the Minister of Education introducedBill 39 the Education Amendment Act (Concussions), 2012 on Tuesday, March 6, 2012. If passed, this legislation would help increase public awareness of the potential severity of concussions and the need for preventing, identifying and managing them properly. It would require school boards to develop policies and guidelines, consistent with those developed by the ministry, to help ensure students are not returning to play or the classroom too soon. As part of a broader provincial concussion strategy we will also be working with the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care and the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport to build awareness about concussion prevention, identification and management, inside and outside of schools. The ministry is establishing a sub-committee of the Healthy Schools Working Table, along with representatives from the health and sport sectors to provide advice on a concussion policy and the broader Ontario Concussion Strategy. I expect the sub-committee will meet at least 3 times by the end of May. We will be scheduling a meeting of the Healthy Schools Working Table for either June 13 or 14. The purpose of the meeting will be to share the work completed by the sub-committee and provide an opportunity for feedback.

  • Loretta received an invitation to participate in a discussion re: Bill 39 and this will take place on Thursday, June 14th. Loretta is looking for any information from the group on what they would like brought forward and will also bring the updates from health unit’s that are part of this teleconference with her
  • Loretta will share an update from the working with the group at the next teleconference

3. Updates from Health Units

Hamilton:

  • Organizing two concussion symposiums for Fall 2012 in partnership with their local ThinkFirst Chapter
  • September 19th 2012 (Wednesday afternoon) : Health care providers
  • October 27th 2012 (Saturday morning): General public, parents, coaches, etc.
  • Dr. Tator will be there along with a local OT and possibly another physician from Ottawa. Focus will be on individual recovery with return to learn and play components
  • Will be looking into having the session recorded on video
  • Sue will pass on flyers for the symposiums for the group and will let members know if they are able to attend
  • The school boards are not sure what to do around concussions at this time and Hamilton hopes to engage coaches and teachers at the symposium. They are aware that the Catholic board follows the OPHEA guidelines but not sure about the Public
  • McMaster has been working on guidelines and Sue will try to get a copy to share with the group

Toronto:

  • Have just gone through a re-organization and are now Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention
  • Are supporting the boards in awareness and policy development
  • Looking at upcoming resource development

Grey-Bruce:

  • Have been in discussions with the Public and Catholic board and they seem to be following the OPHEA Safety Guidelines
  • Attending upcoming safety festivals – using ThinkFirst resource materials
  • Will be presenting to teachers, parents and youth to increase awareness

Simcoe Muskoka:

  • April 23rd SMDHU PHNs participated in the planning and implementing of a Concussion Management workshop/seminar for 45 Athletic Directors and Coaches in a three hours session with Dr. Goudie as the key note speaker. Our focus wasAwareness and Education on Concussion Management, Return to Play and Return to Learn. Dr. Goudie is a Neuro Psychologist and runs a sports Medicine clinic in Barrie
  • PHNs are working in partnership with the ABI Collaborative,(Acquired Brain Injury)
  • We hadexcellentTV and Media coverage andthere was very positive feedback. We anticipated we had reached both Public and Catholic boards but later discovered we had only reached the Public board schools
  • We are in discussion with the Catholic board now, andare planning a similar event in the fall which would also reach parents and athletes
  • Lacrosse coaches have been very interested – are a great partner to keep in mind

Durham:

  • Has been working with the Public board on policy and return to plan/learn
  • Looking at developing a handbook that goes out to parents to accompany the form that needs to be signed by parents
  • There has been interest from other local boards as well

Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox & Addington (KFL&A):

  • Continuing to work with the Public School Board on their Safety Guidelines documents which are in line with OPHEA (package for teachers and coaches). This fall we plan to distribute support resources to area Secondary Schools in partnership with our local ThinkFirst organization. Possible development of handbooks for parents

Algoma:

  • In process of reproducing the York Region brain card to disseminate to children/youth
  • Partnering with Safe Communities and are working on bringing other partners on board. Arranging to bring Dr. Tator in Fall 2013
  • Looking forward to hearing about Hamilton’s experiences with their symposiums this Fall
  • Shared relevant website for the group:
  • Will be attending upcoming summer kids festival to share concussion information

Hastings-PrinceEdwardCounty (H&PEC):

  • Offered to assist both school boards with requirements with Education Amendment Act - no response received
  • Adapted poster by KFL&A on concussion and distributed to all recreation centres in Hastings & Prince Edward counties
  • Attended Concussion Forum organized by the Brain Injury Association Quinte District and Safe Communities Bay of Quinte District
  • Partnering with Chamber of Commerce, Parks & Rec department, high school, sports retailer and youth group to promote helmet use during wheeled activities in Spring/Summer 2012 through media, positive ticketing campaign, helmet give away program, skateboard lessons, and helmet lending program in PrinceEdwardCounty
  • Planning "Worst Helmet Hair" campaign with local ski facility

York:

  • Resources: We have just finished our Spring 2012 dissemination roll-out. Both school boards have now received limited quantities of our resources. Each YR school received brain cards for all the grade 9’s enrolled in Phys Ed, fact cards for the H & PE teachers and posters. We will be revising our main fact card over this summer to allow for some additional content and to make it more comprehensive (include return to play & return to learn language) based on feedback we’ve received during our presentations to teachers & coaches. Launch for this and large quantities of our other resources will be in Fall 2012
  • Over the past few months, we have had requests from several Health Units to adapt our materials, we’re more than happy to share our resources. If there is any feedback on any our resources please feel free to share with us – we appreciate the thoughts & suggestions
  • OPHEA: We have been accepted to present at the OPHEA conference in October 2012. We will be discussing our YR concussion initiative – a local perspective. Looking forward to the opportunity to share our experience with other teachers and administrators across the province
  • Expansion to elementary & new target groups: We have begun expanding our initiative to the elementary focus…When we first met with our curriculum consultant they did voice that concussions were a big issue at the elementary level as well. Cindy, our Injury Prevention liaison nurse with elementary schools beginning to determine concussion needs for this population and beginning to work on developing resource for this target population. One of the needs expressed was a tool for office staff to have re signs and symptoms to assess for a suspected concussion and information to pass on to parents
  • We have also expanded our target audience to include elementary and secondary office administrative assistants and provided several presentations to this group in May & June. It’s been useful to present this information to these groups as we’ve been hearing back on experiences school are having in dealing with when a student presents with a concussion and we’re using this information to inform our practice and how important the education and awareness aspects are at all levels be it administrators, teachers, support staff, parents and students
  • Educational opportunities: Attended a Concussion Symposium at St. Michael’s CollegeSchool in Toronto in April 27th:St Michaels is an all boys private school gr. 7-12 with an emphasis on athletics and they discussed their experience with concussion management in their school. Through their learning enrichment centre they were able to provide a learning environment where students could rehabilitate with the goal of gradually reintegrate back into the classroom. With the support of a consulting neuropsychologist they developed a Return to Learn Overall Plan, similar to the Return to Play guidelines. This really outlines the importance of the importance of the cognitive rest and the implications a concussion has on learning and a student’s academics and the role the school to support a student post concussion. This may lay the ground work for other boards to have a similar plan in place. Can share with everyone
  • If there are any upcoming opportunities people know of, we can definitely share this with the group. And if there is anyone else who comes across any other opportunities, please use the distribution list to share
  • ONF Concussions Ontario: ConcussionsOntario.org (see handout Update April 3, 2012) CME Module Development; 5 working groups based on strategy
  • Loretta will connect with the lead, Corinne, at the HS Working Table meeting on June 14th

4. Other

  • OIPRC Forum: Loretta contacted OIPRC and they are agreeable to our group adding/posting on their site in a Forum. She will be working on this over the coming months. Please email Loretta with any suggestions for categorizing and organizing the content in the forum
  • Reminder: Please circulate any resources you have created for sharing with our Concussion/TBI Work Group

5. Next Meeting:

  • Fall 2012. Tracy will send out a Doodle poll so the group can select possible dates for the next teleconference

1