Today seems like a good day to review PYSC-CTYSF Risk Management.  Actually let's discuss child molestation prevention.  All the other PYSC Risk Management areas (severe weather, financial, disputes, facilities, first aid, travel guidelines, and more) are detailed in PYSC's Risk Management plan from 2006, posted here: http://www.pikesoccerclub.org/RiskManagementPlan1106.pdf ) and on PYSC's Risk page here:  http://www.pikeyouthsoccerclub.org/risk.html

Here's the bottom line, no matter how proactive your parent run soccer club is on prevention,  'PARENTS are the primary advocates for their children. No rule, law, or policy can replace a proactive parent.'  Please never leave your children unsupervised.
 

Some details:

PSC's KidSafe Program

PSC, since 1979, has provided a safe playing environment for its children. Parents expect participation in youth sports will help their children develop emotionally, socially, and physically. Sadly, these benefits occasionally are overshadowed by damaging behavior of adults. Fran Sepler, an expert on reducing risk to children in youth sports, on behalf of the US Youth Soccer Risk Management Committee, in the brochure Managing the Ultimate Risk (available from PSC), states: 'PARENTS are the primary advocates for their children. No rule, law, or policy can replace a proactive parent.' Please never leave your children unsupervised.

Fran states: 'Protecting our Kids is our First Priority. For youth athletes to gain benefit from sport, they must be safe. Every Sport Has its Risks. Coaches, parents and administrators need to do their part. Policies, Procedures, Screening, and Monitoring, are the keys to a safe sports environment.'

Being concerned about player safety, understanding of rules of the game, and other Risk Management issues, especially player safety, is the responsibility of all, including PSC Board members, Committee members, Coaches, players and especially parents.

http://www.pikeyouthsoccerclub.org/riskreminders.html

PSC's KidSafe Risk Polices

PSC Announces additional KidSafe Risk Polices, 7/16/05. PSC adopts Risk Management Plan to supplement existing PSC policies on lightning, jewelry, back ground checks and certification, 7/16/05. 

 Board Policy 2/9/04 "Each Coach and Assistant Coach must complete the PSC Coaching Certification Course or equivalent course. Coaches who have successfully completed a State, USSF, or NSCAA issued "F" (Youth Technical Certificate) course or higher and have given to PSC Risk Management a copy of the license or certificate are 'PSC Certified.'"

 Board Policy 2/9/04 "Each Coach; Assistant Coach; Board member; and Board Committee member, including Team Managers and Commissioners, must agree to and provide information for an annual criminal back ground check."

PSC Announces all its coaches will be certified prior to the Spring, 2004, season.  http://www.pikesoccerclub.org/pscrisk.pdf

Pike Soccer Club and Indy Burn Zero Tolerance Policy Against Abuse http://www.pikesoccerclub.org/riskzero.pdf

Pike Youth Soccer Club, Inc. is committed to providing a safe environment for its members and participants, and to preventing abusive conduct in any form. Every member of this organization is responsible for protecting our participants and insuring their safety and well being while involved in sponsored activities.

To this end, we have established the following guidelines of behavior and procedures for our staff, volunteers and participants. All members of this organization, we well as parents, spectators and other invitees are expected to observe and adhere to these guidelines.

1. Abuse of any kind is not permitted within our organization. This means we do not tolerate physical, sexual, emotional or verbal abuse or misconduct from our players, coaches, officials, volunteers, parents or spectators.

2. Physical and sexual abuse, including, but not limited to, striking, hitting, kicking, biting, indecent or wanton gesturing, lewd remarks, indecent exposure, unwanted physical contact, any form of sexual contact or inappropriate touching, are strictly prohibited within our organization.

3. Emotional abuse or verbal abuse is also prohibited. These include, but are not limited to such forms of abuse as: yelling, insulting, threatening, mocking, demeaning behavior, or making abusive statements in regard to a person's race, gender, religion, nationality/ethnicity, sex or age.

4. We are committed to providing a safe environment for our players, participants and staff. We do so by appointing all coaches, officials and volunteers - and anyone else affiliated with our organization - as protection advocates. Every member of this organization is responsible for reporting to the Club Risk Management Director, any cases of questionable conduct or alleged mistreatment toward our members by any coach, official, volunteer, player, parent, sibling or spectator.

5. Buddy System: We recommend that every activity sponsored by our program put a Buddy System in place. Each youth participant should be assigned a buddy during sponsored activities. No child should go anywhere - to the bathrooms, locker rooms or other location - without his or her buddy.

6. To further protect our youth participants, as well as our coaches and volunteers, we strongly advise that no adult person allow him/herself to be alone with a child (other than their own) or with any group of children during sponsored activities. In particular, we recommend that coaches or other adult members of this organization:

a. Do not drive alone with a child participant in the car.

b. Do not take a child alone to the locker room, bathrooms or any other private room.

c. Provide one-on-one training or individual coaching with the assistance of another adult or the child's Buddy.

d. If you must have a private conversation with a youth participant, do it within view of others, in the gym or on the field, instead of in a private office.

e. Coaches and other adult members of this organization should not socialize individually with the participants outside of sponsored activities.

 7. Supervision/Chaperone ratio: We recommend that for any sponsored activity, the ratio of adults to youth participants be 1:8 - one (or more) adults for every eight children, with a minimum of two adults for every activity.

8. When traveling overnight with youth participants, children should be paired up with other children of same gender and similar age group, with chaperones in separate, but nearby rooms.

9. We want to empower our children to trust their feelings and let them know that their concerns, fears and hopes are important by listening to them. Open communication between children and parents, or between children and other adults in the organization may help early warning signs of abuse to surface.

10. We encourage parents to become as active as possible in sponsored activities, games, practices and other events. The more the parents are involved, the less likely it is for abusive situations to develop.

11. We will respond quickly to any and all allegations of abuse within this organization. This information will be communicated to the authorities for investigation and will be reviewed by the organization's Risk Management Director and/or President. The alleged offender will be notified of such allegations promptly. Indiana Youth Soccer will be copied on all correspondence.

12. Any person accused of sexual or physical abuse may be asked to resign voluntarily or may be suspended by the board until the matter is resolved. Regardless of criminal or civil guilt in the alleged abuse, the continued presence of the person could be detrimental to the reputation of the organization and could be harmful to the participants. A person who is accused but later cleared of charges, may apply to be reinstated within the organization. Reinstatement is not a right, and no guarantee is made that he or she will be reinstated to his/her former position.

13. We promote good sportsmanship throughout the organization and encourage qualities of mutual respect, courtesy and tolerance in all participants, coaches, officials, volunteers and spectators. We advocate building strong self-images among the youth participants. Children with a strong self-image may be less likely targets for abuse; similarly, they may be less likely to abuse or bully others around them.

Approved by PYSC Board of Directors and added to KidSafe Risk Polices, 7/16/05.

Pike Soccer Club and Indy Burn Procedures for Reporting Abuse or Suspected Abuse, July 16, 2005

http://www.pikesoccerclub.org/riskabuse.pdf

All incidents of abuse or suspected abuse should be reported to the President of Pike Soccer Club. One of the most important aspects of creating an awareness program with regard to abuse is to establish set procedures and specific contact person(s) for reporting incidents of abuse or alleged abuse. Communicate these procedures to all participants in your organization so that they know who to turn to and how to report cases of abuse or alleged abuse. In particular, learning about these procedures should be part of each staff or volunteer's initial training or continuing education-type training.

The following steps for reporting abuse or suspected abuse are taken from the book, "For Their Sake: Recognizing, Reporting and Responding to Child Abuse" by Becca Cowan Johnson. Most of these guidelines reference children as victims. However, persons of any age can be victims of abuse. These guidelines are equally applicable to adults as well as children.

Taking the Initial Report:
a. Assure privacy but not confidentiality. A child may say to you that they have something to tell you but only if you promise not to tell anyone else. If you are a legally mandated reporter, you cannot make such a promise. You may tell the child, "Everything we talk about will be private. But if I think you are going to hurt yourself or someone else, or if someone is hurting you, then I may have to share our conversation with someone else who can help you."
b. Be calm. If your response to hearing about an abusive situation reflects shock, it will adversely affect the abused child. It is appropriate to share your feelings of concern with the individual. But getting upset about the situation may result in the child's feeling worse about it or worse about his/her role in it.
 c. Believe the child. Do not ask "why" questions, as they may be accusatory. Many children think that adults will not believe them, especially if their abuser has reinforced such thinking by saying, "No one will believe you because you're just a kid." Therefore, it is important not to discount anything a child tells you that involves an abusive situation.
d. Get the facts, but don't interrogate. In making a report, it is necessary to have certain factual information. However, as mentioned, you do not have to interview the child to determine whether the abuse occurred or didn't occur. Leave that to the experts. Your responsibility is to present the child's story to the authorities.
e. Reassure the child. It may have taken quite a bit of courage for the child to finally tell his or her story. Assure the child that what happened was not his or her fault. Use such statements as "I believe you," or "This happens to other kids, too," or "It's not your fault this happened." Tell the child that he or she was very brave and mature to tell you about the situation.

5.2.2 Reporting the Information to Authorities: After you have made a verbal report to the authorities, you will need to follow up with a written statement. Although the amount and type of information included on an abuse report may vary from state to state, the basic information required for either report usually includes the following (if available):
a. Name, address and phone number of the victim
b. The nature and extent of injury or abuse
c. Name, address and phone number of the alleged abuser
d. Your name, address, phone number and relationship to the victim (if you are not a mandated reporter, you may request anonymity)

It is also beneficial to know or have access to the following information, if possible:
a. The gender, date of birth or estimated age of the victim.
b. If the abuse is interfamilial, the names and ages of other children in the household.
c. The names, addresses, phone numbers of the child's parents or guardians.
d. Any indication of prior injuries, abuse or neglect.
e. The circumstances under which you first became aware or were notified of the person's abuse, injuries or neglect.
f. If the information was given to you by a third party, the identity of that person (unless anonymity was requested).
g. A description of the incident(s) as reported by the victim.
h. Physical indicators noted.
i. Behavioral indicators noted.

 

5.2.3 General Reporting Procedures within Pike Soccer Club

a. State that staff members, volunteers, parents and program participants have a duty to report any incidents of abuse or suspected abuse.
b. Communicate the names of appointed persons within the organization to whom any incidents of abuse or suspected abuse should be reported. However, let every participant, particularly the youth participants, know that any abusive or suspected abusive situation may be reported to any person with whom they feel comfortable. That person will then have the duty to notify the appropriate person within the organization and report the situation to the local authorities.
c. Express the organization's commitment to taking immediate steps to investigate and follow up on every complaint or report of abuse.
d. Strongly communicate to all members of your organization the consequences of abuse. Every person should know that in the event of a complaint of abuse against them, they may be temporarily suspended from their duties while an investigation takes place. Once they are cleared of any charges, they may apply for reinstatement within the organization. However, there is no guarantee that they will be reinstated to their former position. Apply these procedures uniformly for all abusers and alleged abusers, regardless of position within the organization.

e. Give clear authority to a specific individual (or committee) for monitoring the conduct and coaching style of coaches and other volunteers, to ensure that your organization's goals are being met. f. Make a clear commitment to educating staff, volunteers, parents and children about abuse.

Reporting Child Abuse - After receiving the initial report, make a verbal report to the Indiana Protective Services at the number given below. A written statement maybe requested at this time asking for name of victim, nature or extent of injury or abuse, name of alleged abuser and your name (you may request anonymity). Indiana Protective Services: (800) 800-5556. All incidents of abuse or suspected abuse should be reported to the President of Pike Soccer Club. 

Here's the bottom line again:  no matter how proactive your parent run soccer club is on prevention,  'PARENTS are the primary advocates for their children. No rule, law, or policy can replace a proactive parent.'  Please never leave your children unsupervised.

Thank you.

Steve Moore

President

Pike Youth Soccer Club

Thomas Geisse

Executive Director

Community Through Youth Sport Foundation

www.CommunityThroughYouthSportFoundation.org

www.MaryandJohnGeisseSoccerComplex.org

Pike Youth Soccer Club, Inc.

www.PikeSoccerClub.org

Geisse Marketing LLC

317 670 9769

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About: Community Through Youth Sport Foundation mission: to improve the greater Indianapolis community through youth sport and develop fine young men and women.  CTYSF supports the development of Mary & John Geisse Soccer Complex, Eagle Creek Park.  Pike Youth Soccer Club is Indy Parks largest user group and has raised and donated over $1,500,000. to build MJGSC.  Community Through Youth Sport Foundation and Pike Youth Soccer Club By the Numbers:

. 10,000 children served annually in house, tournament and league play.

. 10,000 children served by PSC Have A Ball in school program.

. 10,000 members of Pike Youth Soccer Club.

. 49,000 annual volunteer hours donated to Indy Parks and Department of Public Works.

. $1,000,000. Annual donation of value of volunteer time to Indy Parks, DPW, and Indianapolis.

. $1,500,000. Donation to Indy Parks to build Mary & John Geisse Soccer Complex.

. $2,000,000. Annual economic impact to Indianapolis by tournaments and soccer program.