St. Luke's and Boise School District team up to spread awareness of concussions

St. Luke’s has a longstanding philosophy that collaborating with other organizations can have an even larger effect to improve the health of the communities we serve.

Kristi Pardue has seen that philosophy result in great success in her time as manager of St. Luke’s Sports Medicine Concussion Clinic. 

“St. Luke’s can do so much more when we’re working with community partners,” Pardue said. “We are making so much more of an impact when we do that.”

Pardue has firsthand evidence of that after working with the Boise School District for the past decade. 

In early April, Cassie Luna, a learning coach with the Boise School District, presented a video at the 14^th Annual St. Luke’s Concussion Symposium. The video was the result of years of collaboration between the school district and St. Luke’s.

Geared toward eighth graders, the video features local students asking questions about concussions. The material focuses on some of the misconceptions surrounding concussions and provides facts about what concussions are and how to be aware of some of the common symptoms. It also provides resources for students.

“After watching this video, eighth graders will know more than most adults do about concussions,” Pardue said.

The school district and St. Luke’s previously had partnered on a video about concussions, but that project was geared more toward sports. The Idaho High School Activities Association uses that video for statewide education for coaches, athletic directors and officials to meet legislative requirements around youth sports.

But Luna and Pardue, among others, decided another video with a more general approach was needed.

“We decided if we were going to make this work in the classroom, then we really needed to appeal to a more general population, because concussions can happen to anyone at any time,” said Luna, who also is a former health teacher at Fairmont Junior High School.

Luna said she and others in the school district were glad they could lean on the expertise of St. Luke’s staffers and doctors such as Dr. Kurt Nilsson, the medical director of the St. Luke’s Concussion Clinic who is featured in the video.

“The partnership has been so valuable, because as teachers sometimes we just have basic content knowledge,” Luna said. “But when it comes to concussions specifically there is a lot of new research and a lot of new information that is constantly evolving.”

Pardue said she is confident that the video’s content will be up to date for the foreseeable future.

“There are going to be things that change, but the video should be good for another two years,” Pardue said. “If we do need to make a change we’ll go in with the production company that helped us produce it and update it.”

In the meantime, the video and St. Luke’s concussion information is written into the Boise School District curriculum.

“So, it’s something that all eighth-grade teachers have access to, in addition to supplemental materials to support the video,” Luna said. “And teachers will have flexibility with how they want to use it.”

And that does not apply just to Boise School District teachers. The video and support material is being made available to other educators, too.

“The intention behind this video project is for any eighth-grade classroom in the state – or beyond – to utilize this curriculum,” Pardue said.  

Added Luna: “We want to shout it from the rooftops. We’ve put a lot of work and thought into it. We want it to be engaging, but also educational. So, it’s something that I really hope gets used far beyond the Boise School District. Knowledge is power.”

Access to videos, more information  

• Concussion discussion video for students
• St. Luke’s video the Idaho High School Activities Association uses for statewide education for coaches, athletic directors and officials
• The IHSAA also has information about concussion training and how to earn your IHSAA Concussion Training completion certificate. The link to register is here.
• For more information about the concussion curriculum or how to access it, email [email protected]