This innovative program aims to shift the culture of safety in youth sports and build concussion awareness during competitive play. With support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the program, called One Team, emphasizes community engagement in conducting brief pre-game safety huddles involving coaches, officials, parents, and athletes, with a goal of addressing both sportsmanship and the importance of removing an athlete from play if they potentially have a concussion.

The One Team program targets 9- to 13-year-olds in soccer and football leagues in Puget Sound, Washington and southern Georgia. The first year of One Team will focus on refining the program, followed by a year-long randomized controlled trial evaluating outcomes in sportsmanship and playing with concussive symptoms.

Many hospitals use daily safety huddles to raise awareness of risks, highlight safety tools, decrease medical errors, and establish a culture of patient and provider safety. The researchers hope a pre-game safety huddle will be impactful in addressing youth sports concussions, which affect an estimated 1.1 to 1.9 million children in the United States each year.