It is every parent's nightmare that their child might be a victim of a sexual predator while participating in youth sports. This has become a very high profile issue in sports as well as in other segments of society. Unfortunately sexual abuse of young players has occurred in youth sports leagues of all kinds, as well as with individual coaches in individual youth sports.
Many sports leagues now require that all adults involved in youth sports pass a background check Performing background checks on all volunteers is a powerful tool for protecting each player in your league. While there are many different organizations, each sport league will determine the cost and depth of the background check that is best for their situation. This safety measure is so important it needs to be required in all youth sports leagues.
Background checks are effective in the sense that most sexual predators are not willing to have their background checked. Administrators hope that adults who should be around kids will not apply and thus they will be able to weed out potentially harmful people.
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As a parent it is appropriate to ask the administrators of your sports league if they have done background checks on all adults involved in their league. If the answer is yes then you know the foundation for safety has been established and the league understands the importance of the issue.
If the answer is no, then help the administration to seek opportunities for providing this important service to your league. One place to start is to look at www.NSCAA.com [1], which is the largest coaching organization in the United States. This is one organization that can help your youth sports protect your players by performing background checks on adult volunteers.
But background checks do not solve the entire problem. It is a good first step. Unfortunately, most background checks do not show information about a person who has moved from state to state. For example, the information that is collected by the statewide soccer organization of which I am a member (South Texas Youth Soccer) only gets its information from a Texas database. If the person had a problem in Massachusetts it probably would not show up in Texas.
There a variety of steps a parent can take to protect their child from sexual predators. By far the most important step is to make sure that a coach is never alone with a child.
Parents should also be proactive in teaching their children how to determine a safe environment to be in as well as safe actions by adults. Children should be taught how to determine what is safe touch and what is bad touch. In youth sports, touching does occur. But it is imperative that the child feels comfortable with the type of touch that is appropriate in sports and can determine if a coach or player has stepped over that line into inappropriate touching.
Youth sports organizations or parents are often uncomfortable providing safe training for kids. They do not want to feel like they are meddling with the raising of children. An excellent way is to use materials that are already in existence and have been tested for effectiveness. This means the parents or youth sports organization does not have to start from scratch to provide this level of training.
A good place to turn is the Rape and Sexual Abuse Center of Nashville, Tennessee. RASAC has been in existence for 25 years and has been developing resources that are effective in school settings as well as recreational youth sports settings. The program "Safe @ Last" has been very effectively used in the Nashville parks and recreation program as well as several Nashville area school systems.
One of every three girls and one of every six boys will be victims of sexual abuse by the time they are 18. One of the places that children are vulnerable is in youth sports. Make sure as parents that you have done your part to create a healthy and safe environment for your child and every child in your youth sports organization.
Links:
[1] http://www.nscaa.com/
[2] https://momsteam.com/health-safety/treatment-reporting/handling-child-sexual-abuse-in-sports-advice-for-parents
[3] https://momsteam.com/health-safety/sexual-abuse/girls/is-your-daughters-coach-a-sexual-predator
[4] https://momsteam.com/health-safety/ways-parents-can-help-prevent-sexual-harassment-and-abuse-in-youth-sports