USA Swimming Safe Sport Newsletter

The purpose of this newsletter is to provide a foundation that allows for direct, on-going communication with each of you. Information contained within will cover the most current Safe Sport related information. If you have any feedback, comments or suggestions, please e-mail us at athleteprotection@usaswimming.org.

Safe Sport Updates

The nine person task force appointed to assess the independent review of the Safe Sport Program has completed their assignment. It thoroughly evaluated each recommendation and presented an implementation plan to the USA Swimming Board of Directors on May 3, 2014. The Board of Directors unanimously adopted the recommendations put forth by the task force. You can view the task forces plan in full here. The plan is based on incentives rather than mandates and will serve as the road map for the USA Swimming Safe Sport Program for years to come.

Please send in your Safe Sport Impact Award nominations! Starting this year, the Safe Sport Committee will be giving out an award at convention to a person or group who has served the Safe Sport mission in a positive way. This is an encouraging way to reinforce the great work that our members are doing when it comes to Safe Sport. You can access eligibility and nomination/selection process information here. We are asking that all nominations be submitted no later than June 1, 2014.

Training and Education

Zone Workshops! At the end of May, we will have completed all the Zone Workshops. Thanks to all the LSCs that were able to attend. We had some great conversations around new resources available and how to handle different types of situations that you may be presented with. Come May 26, the website will be updated and all the new resources will be available. This will also include all the past Safe Sport Newsletters. If you do not see something that you were hoping to find on the website, please contact me at ehoendervoogt@usaswimming.org.

Remind Your Clubs

Free education for parents and athletes! We would love to see the numbers for these educational opportunities increase. Please continue to remind your clubs about the trainings by using the flyers. You can access both the parents and athlete training flyers here.

Safe Sport Literature

As adults who interact with children on a daily basis, there may come a time when a child turns to you for support for abuse that is taking place in their life. Child abuse can take many forms and while it does not always lead to injuries that you can see, it can result in severe emotional harm that can have long-lasting effects. Please refer to a handout from the Office for Victims of Crime for information about what to do should this happen. The handout is titled ‘What Adults Need to Know about Child Abuse’ and you can access it here. As trusted adults, we can have a very positive impact and be a huge support for children who are suffering.