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Brooke de Lench

UNICEF UK Names MomsTEAM Institute Pioneer Organization For U.S. Implementation of Int'l Safeguards for Children In Sport

MomsTEAM Insitute 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 a new set of International Safeguards for Children in Sport.

What Do Mothers Want from Youth Sports?


In two days, espnW and the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Project will co-host an espnW: Women + Sports Summit at which they will report the results of a survey in which a nationally representative sample of moms were asked what they wanted and needed for their kids from youth sports. At the conclusion of the summit, a group of thought leaders will react to the survey findings and explore issues facing both moms and their daughters in sports during a Project Play roundtable .

A new survey of sports moms promises to tell us what they want out of youth sports, but MomsTEAM's Founder Brooke de Lench already knows: they want more than pay lip service to the concerns of mothers; they want those who run youth sports organizations to actually take concrete steps to address those concerns, first and foremost among them being to make sports safer.

NOCSAE Meeting: Lots Of Questions, But No Answers

Last Friday, I attended the summer meeting of the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) at the Boston Harbor Hotel. It was hard to be inside on such a spectacular summer day, but made easier by the location of the meeting: in the Atlantic Room, directly above Rowe's Wharf, with a view of a sparkling Boston harbor filled with sailboats and power boats. Boston harbor skyline with Rowes Warf

The summer meeting of the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) was held in a room overlooking Boston harbor, but the view was about the only thing that made it worth attending, says Brooke de Lench.

More Than International, Federal and State Laws Needed To Keep Kids Safe Playing Sports

This week and last, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Child is meeting to review the progress made under provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. 194 nations will participate, except for three, which have yet to ratify the CRC: Somalia, South Sudan, and the United States.*Convention on Rights of the Child @ 25 poster

With the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Child meeting to review the progress made under provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), MomsTEAM's Brooke de Lench talks about the importance, not of just laws and treaties, in keeping kids safe playing sports, but of voluntary safety programs, such as the SmartTeam program being developed for introduction in Fall 2014.

Six Years After: Concussion Risk Management Still A Work In Progress

 

It is hard believe that it has now been six years since I gave the keynote address at the National Sports Concussion Summit in Marina del Rey, California. Harder, yet to think we have been leading this charge since 2000.

17th Annual Mother's Day Wish List from Brooke de Lench

It's Mothers Day once again. Time for spring sports, warmer weather, longer days, planting gardens, and, of course, watching kids play sports. Each year for the past seventeen years, MomsTEAM has published my Mother's Day Wish list. As you will see, many of the wishes on this year's list will look very familiar to long-time visitors. But a couple are brand spanking new:

Every year for the past 17 years, MomsTEAM Founder Brooke de Lench has issued a Mother's Day wish list. Here's this year's list.

National Youth Sports Safety Month: Some Progress, But Still A Long Way To Go

By Brooke de Lench

A solid foundation 

When the non-profit 501(c)(3) National Youth Sports Safety Foundation (NYSSF) was formed in 1989, its mission was to provide information on the prevention of youth sports injuries. It got its start after Rita Glassman's young daughter Michelle suffered a severe back injury which ended her tennis career. Rita was the first to designate April as National Youth Sports Safety Month, which MomsTeam has been celebrating every year since 2001.

In celebration of April as National Youth Sports Safety Month, MomsTEAM is re-posting many of the blog entries contributed in 2012 by some our favorite sports medicine and safety experts and sprinkling in some new ones.

Research Papers and Peer-Reviewed Studies: A World of Difference

Note to reader: I wrote this blog on February 25, 2014 and updated it to include new information and updates one year later February 25, 2015 about a new "helmet add-on paper.

Last week, we posted to the site a group of four articles about a peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Neurosurgery showing that football helmet design affected concussion risk among a large group (or what scientists call a "cohort") of college football players.

Last week, we reported on a peer-reviewed study showing that football helmet design affected concussion risk. At the same time, we received a press release about an abstract of a research paper on football helmets reporting that they do very little to protect kids against the rotational forces that cause concussion.  MomsTEAM decided not to report on the paper, and here's why.

 

"Friday Night Tykes": Episode 5

"You can't do what you want to do on this field" 

 

These are the words assistant Outlaws' coach Tony Coley barked at 8-year-old Tamari Hayes in last night's fifth episode of "Friday Night Tykes."  Ordered to run a lap (as punishment for a mistake or rule violation so trivial that I somehow missed it), Tamari walked around the practice field instead.  "I asked you to run the lap and you walked it. Everybody has rules. You have to follow them or face the consequences," Coley scolded.

Last night's episode of "Friday Night Tykes" didn't hit a new low, thankfully. In fact, while coaches continued to scream profanity at their players and engage in what many, including Brooke de Lench, view as out-and-out child abuse, it actually had some positive moments.

#C4CT UN Conference: We've Come A Long Way, But A Long Way To Go

When MomsTEAM launched its Youth Sports Concussion Safety channel back in 2001, I suspected that people at the time must have thought the time and energy a team of experts, MomsTEAM staff, and I spent on the topic of youth sports concussions bordered on the obsessive, especially as no other youth sports website, much less the mainstream media, was talking about it at all back then.

When MomsTEAM launched its Youth Sports Concussion Safety channel in 2001, Brooke de Lench suspected that people at the time must have thought the time and energy she was spending on the topic bordered on the obsessive. 14 years later, as Brooke reports from the #C4CT concussion conference at the United Nations during Super Bowl Week, it has become a national obsession.
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