Good afternoon everyone,
As a result of a recent incident involving a player being struck in the head in a Men’s match, and following consultation with both Hockey NSW and Hockey Australia (HA) the Executive Committee are rolling out the Concussion Policy that has been adopted by HA in February. There are two documents attached which are the Concussion Toolkit providing instructions on managing concussion, and the Concussion Management Workflow Chart which is a quick reference guide for identifying and handling these injuries.
As a first step we are requesting Clubs make your other Club management committee members, coaches, umpires, tech officials and players aware of the policy, and highlight the workflow chart which is a clear, and easy to follow tool, to help your members act if someone is hit in the head during a match.
The next step will involve your Club’s Executive Committee representative contacting the Club President in the next couple of weeks to ensure this policy has been rolled out to your members and ascertaining your needs are in respect to further training. We will appoint a member of the Executive Committee to contact the schools.
The concussion policy applies to all members in our Association engaged in matches, Junior or Senior. The Executive Committee have also agreed to a requirement for the coach, manager or a team representative to contact a Junior players family to advise them if a player has been struck in the head during a match if the Junior player doesn’t have a family member present at the match. We are requesting when contacting the players family they bring to the attention of that person the symptoms in the workflow chart to monitor for signs of concussion or other injury.
This additional requirement is for Juniors playing in any level of competition.
The workflow chart will be displayed in the officials’ dugouts on all-weather notice boards to be installed in the coming weeks and will be posted on our website as a news item.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us for any clarification of these instructions.
Regards
SHHI Executive Committee
