Protect Youth Sports

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” – Edmund Burke

Penn State Scandal

As I am sure you have heard by now, Penn State university has been rocked by the scandal of a former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, who is accused of sexually assaulting young boys beginning as early as the mid 90’s and continuing throughout and after his tenure at Penn State.

Where Did Coach Paterno Go Wrong?

According to the attorney general report there are several accusations of assault happening both on and off campus property with one in particular being witnessed by a graduate assistant who reported what he witnessed to head football coach Joe Paterno. Paterno then reported the incident to his immediate supervisor who escalated the incident to senior staff, but never University Police or local officials.

The Grand Jury concluded that the sexual assault of a minor male in 2002 should have been reported to the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare and/or a law enforcement agency such as University Police or the Pennsylvania State Police in accordance with Pennsylvania’s mandatory reporting statute for suspected child abuse.

Most people don’t’ disagree with Joe Paterno first reporting to his direct supervisor what he heard from his graduate assistant about Jerry Sandusky assaulting a boy in a Penn State athletics facility shower room. You shouldn’t have to go over your supervisor’s head and report an incident to the police. What we can’t accept is why he waited a day to tell Penn State athletic director Tim Curley and why he didn’t make sure that Curley went immediately to the police with the report. We now know that Curley did not go to the police at all – and Paterno left the matter alone.

What Can We Learn?

In the light of this horrific tragedy, being angry and shocked is simply not enough. What happened at Penn State needs to go beyond anger, surprise, sensationalism, and lengthy news coverage. Every organization that works with children needs to look at what happened and do some self- evaluation of their current sexual abuse prevention strategies.  Don’t be afraid to make changes.

Policies Protect Children

Start with a clear policy and guidelines on what is acceptable and not acceptable.  The consequences of not having a child protection policy in place far outweigh the cost of implementing them.  As fathers, mothers and caretakers we don’t care what the cost is to protect our own children.  Youth sport and recreation should have the same level of protection in place that you would choose for your own children. 

It’s not too difficult to establish a policy with clear, enforceable child protection guidelines.  The basic tenants of your policy should include background checks for staff and volunteers, including coaches and officials that work with minors.  Background checks of criminal and sex offender history that meet national standards typically cost around $10 to $20.  And because only 1 in 10 sexual abusers has a criminal history it is also imperative to have mandatory child safety training on the topic of sexual abuse prevention and awareness.  Be sure to get signed agreements from volunteers stating they have read and understand the policy and agree to adhere to the requirements of the policy. Enforcing the policy is essential to demonstrating that your organization has performed the necessary due diligence, in case someone still manages to slip through the cracks.

Children Won’t Always Tell

Next it is paramount that we figure out how to get kids to understand when something wrong has been done to them – and then report it to the right people. It is terrifying how pedophiles are able to keep their victims silent. Children remain silent because their abuser scares them into silence; there can also be shame and embarrassment, and sometimes even a feeling of affection for the person molesting them. Silence is terrible because it protects and enables the molester to keep on molesting, and it deprives the victims of the help they need. Studies have shown the average sexual predator victimizes 120 before being caught.

Predators Are On The Prowl

It is not enough to say “we know everyone” or “that will never happen here.” Our communities and youth sports program are a target for predators.  Predators are eager to volunteer to coach children and they especially like that they can get immediate access to children by coaching or officiating.  Predators don’t like to wait long before gaining access.  If access is not permitted they will move to another target.  The two-person rule is a great way to weed out any potential predators.  This requires 2 adults to be present with children at all times.

About Protect Youth Sports

Coach & Volunteer Background Checks through Protect Youth Sports are designed to help league officials implement and maintain a thorough background screening program for employees, staff and volunteers, while using simple paperless technology to streamline the process.

Protect Youth Sports can help you avoid many of the problems that occur with low quality, instant databases and state-level-only police checks, which lead to lead to missed records, incomplete records, out-of-date records and inadequate protection from sexual predators. Don’t put your children and organization at risk!

 Visit us www.protectyouthsports.com

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If you think a person should be able to submit their own background check to your organization, you might want to think again.

There are several issues with allowing a coach, volunteer or employee to retreive their own background check. They could submit for a background check and falsify the report before submitting it to your oganization. This has been the case at Johnston School Department when an applicant submitted false papers to the school department. According to the police report the applicant tried to get a job with the Johnston School Department as a volleyball coach. The applicant was arraigned on a charge of filing false documents and sent to the Adult Correctional Institutions on a previous warrant.

To verify a persons identification we recommend a Social Security Number (SSN) verification, including a name and date of birth check. By conducting a simple check like this we can verify a person’s identity and you can be sure the information they are providing is first of all true and accurate, then you can use this information to search court records and national database records for felony, misdemeanor and sex offender history. Every organization should take the responsibility to collect an applicant’s agreeement for a background check and perform the proper due dilligence, themselves, by conducting an SSN verification and criminal records search. This should be repeated annually as long as the volunteer or employee is in contact with youth or other vulnerable persons.

Published at www.protectyouthsports.com

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Protect Youth Sports launched the Coach Pay System as part of Verity Paperless Solution.  This solution is allowing organizations and leagues that do not have a budget for screening coaches to charge their coaches online through a secure payment gateway.  To date there has been overwhelming interest in the online Coach Pay System.   There have also been several large youth sports organizations taking advantage of other features available in the Verity Paperless Screening Solution.  Listen to what Kasey Connors, the Community Tennis Manager from the Unites States Tennis Association for Middle States had to say about Verity. 

“I am writing in reference to our recent experience with Protect Youth Sports and their background screening they provide. USTA Middle States has over 3,000 players participating in our youth team tennis program and prior to this year we had no background screening process. We were new to understanding how a process like this would work and the team at Protect Youth Sports was extremely helpful in setting us up and very attentive to answering all of my questions.

The Verity system is very easy to use, as well as easy to customize and format for our specific information we need to collect from our coordinators and coaches. The reports have been very handing in making sure we are screening everyone prior to each of our leagues starting. The customizable webpage that is specific for our coaches also has been a bonus for us in branding our league

The customer service provided to us particularly in the compliance office has been extraordinary. We wanted to have as little interaction with the reports as possible and they were very accommodating in setting us up based on our needs.  As Middle States covers three states, they were also very helpful in making sure we chose the correct background screening to run based on where all of our coaches live.  Our client support specialist always gets back to me in a timely manner and took much anxiety off my chest in implementing our background screening process.

 As a youth sports administrator I would highly recommend Protect Youth Sports as your background screening provider.”

www.ProtectYouthSports.com

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Protect Youth Sports

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By Glen Evans, GlenEvans.net

Recently in New Bedford, a 14 year old girl was sexually assaulted by a little league coach. Near Galveston, Texas, a soccer coach accused of an inappropriate relationship with a 15 year old killed himself after being arrested when his relationship with the girl was revealed.

In northern Virginia, a popular physical education teacher, and soccer coach reportedly sexually assaulted a 12 year old girl in the school gym.

This is shocking and ridiculous.  How is it child predators have access to our children while playing sports?

A simple search in any search engine will list in detail the numerous offenses being reported across the United States, and the trend is very disturbing. Aside from the fact that these types of crimes are life altering for the victimized children, they leave parents mistrustful and worried their children will be hurt or victimized.

Brad Snellings, Marketing Director for Protect Youth Sports puts it this way, “Child predators and criminals should be discouraged from applying for coaching jobs. Requiring background checks as part of your youth sports organization policy is a good way to dissuade someone from eveb applying.”

Many youth sports organizations are run by volunteers with limited budgets, and the problem would seem too big to tackle.

Many organizations may assume they can’t afford to put all their coaches and officials thorugh lengthy background checks, but the reverse is true.

I can imagine a youth sports coordinator feeling like they can’t do this because of an adminstrative nightmare, but that wouldn’t be true because of a great online resource I am going to share with you.

In my view, they can’t afford not to. From a parental perspective, youth organizations who allow child molesters to operate within their organization would somehow be negligent, especially when their are online tools that streamline the process.

The Florida Senate recently passed legislation that would require youth coaches to undergo background checks, when it was revealed by a CBS 4 news report which showed a Florida organizations were allowing two long-time coaches at Tamiami Park, men who coach six and seven year-olds every week were arrested on drug felony charges. Police say coaches Jorge Perez and Manuel Ojeda ran a big pothouse in Southwest Miami-Dade.

Allowing drug dealers to coach our kids?  Not my kids!

Although they were charged with serious felonies, they were still allowed to coach due to a loophole.  Legislative efforts are now being made to close this hole and protect children.  I wouldn’t want my kids being influenced by drug dealers, and I am sure most parents would agree.

One organization that is making a difference in this arena is Florida based Protect Youth Sports. From my research, I would comfortably say it is the most comprehensive coach background check process currently offered.

Protect Youth Sports has a multi-level approach for any Youth Sports Organization because they offer standard background checks and offer the opportunity to have several different types of searches done. For example, your sports organization could choose to check a coach’s driving record, a county court search, and a sexual predator search. If the volunteer will be handling money, you can also have a more extensive background check done.

Each state has different requirements, and Protect Youth Sports has an online consultation service that shows you exactly what your state requires.  This is what makes this system so great.  Most youth sports organizations already have overworked volunteers, who may question whether they have the time to get all of this done and to administrate it properly.

Protect Youth Sports has created a process where it is all done on the internet. It makes it very easy. A coach goes online, provides information within a database, signs an online form and Protect Youth Sports takes care of the rest.

Once the background check is done, usually with 48-72 hours, the results are available for the coordinator to see and make a decision about the appropriateness of the coach candidate.

For the organization serious about protecting children, Protect Youth Sports also has an online video training course concerning child safety, so coaches can receive quick training to recognize when a child may be being abused, and the requirements necessary to report the abuse to the appropriate authorities.

Once the training course is viewed by the coach, a certificate is available for print and it is documented that the course has been completed within the system.

Another great thing about Protect Youth Sports background checks is that the background checks are re-verified.  Imagine doing a background check on a prospective coach, and getting the wrong information back.  The risk is a good person may be unfairly accused.  Protect Youth Sports provides a re-verification process that decreases the chances of this happening, so your youth sports organization can be assured they are receiving the most accurate, dependable information available.

The National Alliance for Youth Sports has even endorsed PYS. John Engh, chief operating officer said, ”Protect Youth Sports has demonstrated a unique awareness to the needs of youth sports organizations and has developed a very thorough process for running national background checks and re-verifying the accuracy of records.”

Coach background checks are increasingly being used by sports leagues, recreation centers, and children’s organizations due to the disturbing trend and increased reporting in the media regarding child sex abuse cases.

If you have questions about beginning a background check program for coaches, PYS even has a short video course explaining how it all works.  Signing up for the course is easy and you can just go to their homepage at www.protectyouthsports.com and fill in the form with your name and email address.

The video links are then sent to your email box and you can discover how to protect the kids in your care using their state of the art system.

As a police officer, this writer is uniquely aware of the threats against children. Child predators are extremely adept at infiltrating organizations, gaining trust, and then victimizing children. Although most normal people would like to avoid thinking about this, our litigious society won’t allow it.  There is a lawyer, judge and jury somewhere who will make your organization pay for ignoring this problem, especially when the internet and related technology is readily available to help you.

Youth sports exist to give our kids a great experience, to challenge them physically and help them grow into maturity. A sex abuse scandal will not only harm the child who is victimized for a lifetime, but will rob your sports organization of the hard earned trust it has worked so hard to achieve within the community.  Do not allow this to happen to your athletes.

Protect them with a great background check program for your coaches and volunteers, and I recommend Protect Youth Sports to help you streamline the process.

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