The value of youth sports on a child’s development will vary depending on their experiences. Some kids will learn to enjoy competition in a healthy atmosphere that builds the emotional, physical and social skills necessary for their adult life and future development. They may learn to compete effectively with others, hone their skills and challenge themselves to achieve greater things. Their self confidence, poise under pressure and mental attitude could be affected for a lifetime and impact their future successes on and off the field.
But what happens to a kid that has a negative experience in youth sports? This can have as dramatic an affect as a positive experience. Instead of feeling more confident, they feel less confident. Instead of managing the pressures of life with poise, they avoid and distance themselves from others. Instead of developing a can do attitude, they are filled with thoughts that tell them they don’t’ measure up or will never be good enough. These are common and most kids will grow up and be just fine, eventually outgrowing or learning to deal with their insecurities.
A kids’ youth sports experience will certainly affect the rest of their lives one way or another, positive or negative. What about a kid that experiences sexual abuse? The emotional impact will last a lifetime and could even cause the abused child to perpetuate the cycle, by becoming the abuser. These are harsh realities of the world we live in and we need to limit these occurrences as best we can. Our kids have enough insecurities and negative thoughts to deal with, without the devastating impact of sexual abuse weighing them down.
The thought of a kid being sexually abused by a leader, mentor or coach is without a doubt terrifying. It causes us to feel a sense of disgust that leaves us unable to comprehend how someone could do that to a kid. That might be why we tend to avoid thinking about it, talking about it or preparing for it.
We spend a lot of time teaching kids what they need to learn to get better and be more successful, but are we teaching our volunteers and staff what they need to learn in order to protect our kids? The purpose of this article is to not only inform you about the reality of sexual abuse, but to also help you prevent this from happening in your league and organization.
First and foremost, you need to implement a Child Protection program and Policy. Your policy should require Training for all your volunteers, staff and employees to be educated on the realities of abuse and the signs to look for. Your policy should also require all volunteer, coaches and staff to pass a background check.
First, let’s start by telling our volunteers and staff the facts about sexual abuse and sexual abusers.
Facts about Sexual Abuse and Sexual Abusers:
- Sexual Molesters will seek access to children where protective barriers are low.
• Only 10% of sexual predators will EVER encounter the criminal justice system.
o As a result, your criminal background check – even if it works perfectly – will only identify a fraction of those who want to abuse children in your programs.
o Sexual abusers KNOW when there is nothing for you to find – even if you run a check.
o Background checks are important, but have limitations: NOT A SILVER BULLET!
o If a background check is ALL we do, our security blanket is the size of a place mat. - 1 of 3 girls and 1 of 6 boys will be sexually molested before reaching age 18.
o THIS IS AN ISSUE OF EPIDEMIC PROPORTION … AND IS GROWING.
• 66% of molestation victims will not tell until adulthood (if ever).
• Male molesters preferring boys will have an average of 150 victims before prosecution.
• Male molesters preferring girls will have an average of 52 victims before prosecution.
• 85% of convicted molesters are men; 15% of convicted molesters are women.
• 90% of sexual abuse victims are abused by someone they know and trust.
o Amber alerts and the ‘snatch and grab’ are a fraction of sexual abuse occurrences.
o the greater risk is from those we allow coach our teams or parents - Sexual molesters will groom children AND gatekeepers prior to sexual behavior.
o staff members and volunteer leaders are gatekeepers
o staff members and volunteer leaders MUST understand and recognize grooming process - There is NO visual profile for a molester.
o most molesters appear helpful, trustworthy, kind and safe
o to recognize a molester, gatekeepers MUST understand and recognize grooming process
If education were as simple as providing a handout to our volunteers, coaches and staff that would be great; unfortunately that is not enough if we expect them to help us prevent abuse. Against this backdrop Protect Youth Sport has create online Child Safety Training that you can now use to conduct training with your volunteers. The training includes an interactive online video training, testing and certification, for awareness of sexual abuse and abusers and how to prevent and report abuse.
Background Checks are a must.
Background checks have become a standard practice in youth sports, as coach violence and sexual abuse and harassment have become more frequent occurrences.
First and foremost, background checks are necessary as a matter of safety:
• Discover previous arrest and convictions for sexual and/or violent offenses
• Protect your organization from legal liability and lawsuits
• Prevent allegations of negligent selection and hiring
A proper background check should be part of your risk management strategy, including documented protection policies, procedures and child abuse prevention training.
We are often asked by youth sports organizations, “What type of criminal background check should I do for my staff, employees and volunteers?” Protect Youth Sports has consulted with thousands of youth sports organizations to help them understand the types of criminal records sources. Protect Youth Sport has even developed an online consultation system, so you can view recommendations for criminal background checks in each state. When searching the “national” criminal database it?s important to understand what jurisdictions are included in the database, how often the records are updated, what identifiers are/are not given, what search parameters are used, and what compliance issues are associated with a database “hit” as it relates to the FCRA §613.
Protect Youth Sport’s recommendations include a criminal background check, as well as a “true” 50 states sex offender registries search with several states that must be searched by “name-only”, because some states do not provide date of birth on the offenders. A social security number verification is included to verify the correct name and date of birth of the applicant and to alert you to possible mis-matches between the name provided by the applicant and the name registered to the social security number. A mis-match could indicate that the applicant is attempting to hide their true identity.
Protect Youth Sports is one of very few companies serving the coach background check marketplace that offers an FCRA §613 compliant “national” criminal database search for youth sports. Protect Youth Sports sends “instant” results for “no-hit” records. For “hit” records there is a 24-48 hour process of re-verification, in which the county courthouse records are updated to the “national” criminal database records, prior to sending results back.
Protect Youth Sports makes recommendations for your state and also does a complete re-check of all background check hits, so you get the right information the first time, before you qualify or disqualify coaches from volunteering.
A background check can also have a pre-screening affect whereby repelling any would be offenders from even applying to work with the kids. Of course this will only repel those who have prior criminal records.
Summary:
Youth sports decision makers must make sure to cover all the bases when it comes to protecting youngsters in their programs. When recruiting and evaluating volunteers, no youth sports administrator wants to strike out by appointing someone who may not be qualified for the job, or who puts children in danger. To help decision makers with these crucial responsibilities Protect Youth Sports, one of the nations’ premier background check providers, introduces an all new system for leagues and associations to totally manage their volunteer youth sports coaches background checks and training.
About Protect Youth Sports:
Coach Background Checks through industry expert Protect Youth Sports are designed to help leagues and youth sports officials implement and maintain a thorough background screening process and child abuse prevention program for volunteers, staff and employees. Preventing sexual predators and violent offenders from working with children and youth is our primary concern.
Many of the problems that youth sports leagues encounter with background checks are caused by low quality, instant checks and state-level-only background checks. Instant checks and state-level-only checks lead to missed records, incomplete records, out-of-date records and inadequate protection from sexual predators.
Protect Youth Sports has established a firm and reputable standing within the youth sports market for background screening. Benefitting from this very much proven history could not be any simpler, as over 5,000 organizations have found.
Visit www.www.protectyouthsports.com
Call (877) 319-5587
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