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By Justin Goulet

SPHEReS: A safety guideline for schools in Alberta

Apr 25, 2021 | 8:30 AM

EDMONTON, AB – A new website is offering a resource to ensure students and youth stay safe while taking part in physical activity.

The School Physical Activity, Health & Education Resource for Safety, also known as SPHEReS is a tool for teachers, instructors and coaches that provides a wealth of information on safe instructional practices.

Tips can be implemented for Alberta students’ physical education curriculum activities, daily physical activity initiatives, intramurals, as well as recess and lunch breaks.

Kathy Belton noted that, “it [also] involves Special Olympics-unified activities, some Indigenous games, plus some instructional considerations so that all the teachers and coaches in Alberta have a common place to go for information about what they need to do to keep our children safe in school.”

Belton is the Associate Director of the Injury Prevention Society in the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta. The society, working with various partners, developed the online tool. One of the partners involved was the Sport Injury Prevention Research Centre, Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary.

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She told Lethbridge News Now that, “we’ve had guidelines for physical activity in Alberta schools and in inter-school athletics for a number of years.”

“Actually, we first introduced them in 1999 and this project, funded by the Government of Alberta, was just the next evolution in terms of being able to put all of this information online, so that it was searchable for teachers, so that it was easier access for teachers than a print copy of a resource.”

The Injury Prevention Society received $200,000 from the provincial government for the project, to gather information compiled on to the website. Belton remarked that the project actually came in under budget.

“So, I returned a portion of the funding back to the Government of Alberta.”

The web tool is available in both English and French and is included in the ESC to Grade 12 Guide to Education.

Belton explained that, “it includes online fundamentals, such as the role and duties of supervisors, medical considerations, facility factors, field trip consent forms.”

“All of it is in one location, so that teachers and coaches or anybody actually doing physical activity with kids in schools really has one source to go to.”

She added that youth community centres and other organizers of physical activities for youth can follow the guidelines and tips provided on SPHEReS.

Belton said, “as we’re all getting used to working online and having things online, the goal of this is really to make it [available] at a teacher’s fingertips or a coach’s fingertips.”

“You know, [for example] they’re going snowboarding or something and she [student or youth] has a question, or the teacher has a question, it’s easy to look up. They’re not fumbling going through three different pieces of information; it’s all there at their fingertips.”

SPHEReS also includes information on concussion protocols and neuromuscular training.

Belton made mention of the dynamic warmup program, “which has been shown to decrease the, you know, we think of them as warmup injuries where the ankle turns, or you have a knee issue.”

“These exercises have been shown to do a 35 to 75 per cent [injury] reduction in sport and recreation when used, so I think if we can get more teachers and more coaches actually doing those warmup exercises we are actually going to see less injuries in our schools.”

The School Physical Activity, Health & Education Resource for Safety can be accessed at myspheres.ca.

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