2020 has been a crucial year for the Safe Sport program. According to USA Swimming, “in what may be a silver lining of the last few months, the USA Swimming Safe Sport team helped facilitate more coach, athlete, and parent virtual trainings in support of the Safe Sport Club Recognition Program in the first half of 2020 than in any other calendar year.”
This statement is reflected in the fact that as of August 31, 2020, 544 clubs have earned Safe Sport Recognition, while 562 clubs have initiated the SSRP process. These numbers account for almost 37% of USA Swimming member clubs.
Furthermore, 89% of the individuals trained in 2020 have been trained since April. This number is double the number of people the Safe Sport team has trained in any full year in the past as coaches have taken advantage of the slowdown in training for continuing development.
To continue this trend, USA Swimming has come up with incentives, including making Safe Sport-recognized clubs eligible for COVID-19 relief grants.
Additionally, starting July 2, 2020, all club teams that have been recognized as Safe Sport Clubs – including those teams that were recognized prior to July 2 and maintained their status as a Safe Sport Club through July 2 – will be entered in a raffle every month for the opportunity to win a visit from a National Team member or alum. The clubs that do not win will be allowed to stay in the drawing until the raffle ends on December 31, 2020.
More information on this new incentive can be found here.
To see the official statement made by USA Swimming in regards to this incentive, follow this link.
making safety for our athletes a “contest”?
A contest would imply there is a winner and a loser. As the article clearly states, this is an “incentive” to do the right thing.
read with me Adam “… How to Enter. To enter the Contest, a Team must achieve Safe Sport Club Recognition status …”
My response was to Jordan was in regards to making the athletes safety a contest. When we all put athletes safety first, we all win.
No reason to get worked up ET.
Did Tim Hinchey and Mike Ungar take the course, yet? And more importantly, did they pass the course?
Hinchey admitted in testimony before Congress that he’d never read USAS’s safe sport rules!
To be fair, so much of safe sport is plain common sense (2-deep leadership, don’t massage your swimmers, etc). He’s also pushing Safe Sport and the numbers show good progress.
Not that it’s any better, but I assume he was lying for some strategic purpose to avoid answering certain other questions about the Code of Conduct/SafeSport.
The Code of Conduct is just not that long. He could’ve asked for a 5 minute recess to use the bathroom and read them while taking a leak.
It should be mandatory!