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Sexual Abuse

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This week's announcement that USA Swimming has commissioned an "independent review" of its safe sport program is just the latest in a series of chess moves by this U.S. Olympic Committee national governing body in the run-up to a meeting next week with the staff of Congressman George Miller, the California Democrat and ranking minority member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce who is investigating how the organization responds to sexual abuse allegations.
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Brooke de Lench
Brooke de Lench

Reducing Sexual Abuse in Youth Sports Requires A Team Effort

Submitted by Brooke de Lench on Fri, 06/07/2013 - 19:12. | comments

NOTE: This article is from an earlier  blog, yet remains important.

Earlier this spring  I had the honor of being invited to speak at the "Safe to Compete: Protecting Child Athletes from Sexual Abuse" summit in Washington, DC, sponsored by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation.  

The summit brought together over fifty of the nation's largest youth-serving and youth-sports organizations, as well as child development, youth sports and prevention experts, to discuss strategies for protecting children from sexual abuse while playing sports.

The need to redouble efforts to prevent sexual abuse of athletes by their coaches was driven home to Brooke de Lench over the past couple of weeks, which has seen a sharp spike in reports in the media about youth sports coaches accused and convicted of, and sentenced to probation or jail for sex crimes against young athletes.
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U.S.O.C. Launches Safe Sport Program

The U.S. Olympic Committee has announced the launch of Safe Sport, a welfare training program aimed at improving the safety of athletes. The program is the latest step taken by the USOC to implement the recommendations of its Working Group for Safe Training Environments.
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Preventing Sexual Abuse By Youth Coaches: Criminal Background Checks Not Enough

Protecting youth athletes from becoming victims of sexual predators involves much more than criminal background checks of coaches before they are hired, says a longtime interscholastic sports administrator.
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Child Sexual Abuse: The Dark Underbelly Of Youth Sports Culture

The Penn State scandal didn’t occur in youth sports.  Yet, it is one of the rare occasions that sex abuse by coaches, which is a major problem in youth sports, got the type of national publicity that allowed the problem to penetrate the public consciousness.  The big question is whether we as a sports society are up to the task of doing to more to prevent future abuse.

 

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Should Annual Background Checks Be Required For All Adults in Youth Sports?

All adults involved in youth sports over the age of seventeen, including volunteers and paid employees, should pass an annual background check, with no "grandfathering"  or exceptions.
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Brooke de Lench
Brooke de Lench

Penn State Sex Abuse Scandal: What Happens When Media Spotlight Fades?

Submitted by Brooke de Lench on Sun, 12/04/2011 - 19:40. | comments

The alleged sexual abuse of boys by a longtime coach at Penn State* has focused media attention once again on the issue.  For the parents of the alleged victims, of course, their worst nightmares have come true. But what could have been done to prevent it? And is the culture of male sports itself at least partially to blame?

The sad fact, as noted in an article by Michael Hartill, a lecturer in the Department of Sport and Physical Activity at Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, Lancashire, England who has studied sexual abuse of boys in sports extensively, is that "the largely unregulated world of children's sport has typically been slow to address the issue of sexual abuse of youth athletes." 

The alleged sexual abuse of boys by a longtime coach at Penn State has focused media attention once again on the issue.  For the parents of the alleged victims, of course, one their worst nightmares has come true. But what could have been done to prevent it? And is the culture of male sports itself at least partially to blame?
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Sexual Abuse of Boys in Sports: Is Homophobia A Factor In Delayed Reporting?

With the media spotlight recently focused on sexual abuse of boys in sports, a British expert suggests that one of the principal reasons why young males allow the abuse to continue and delay reporting, often for decades, lies in the homophobic culture of sports itself.
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Preventing Sexual Abuse At Summer Camp: Five Tips for Parents

Summer camp is an ideal place for abusers. While no camp is immune from the possibility of sexual abuse, there are five important steps parents can take to prevent their child from becoming a victim says abuse expert, Dr. Jackie Humans.
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