USA Swimming Offers Free Safe Sport Education to Athletes and Their Parents

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (June 15, 2012) – On June 18, USA Swimming will launch free online Safe Sport programming for the parents of its 300,000 athlete members. The online programming, created by online education leader Praesidium, will empower parents with information about sexual abuse prevention.

Parent education will be available at http://www.usaswimming.org/protect starting on June 21.

“Education truly is a cornerstone of our programming, and we will continue to work to raise awareness and empower our membership with education about safe sport,” said Susan Woessner, Director of Safe Sport for USA Swimming.

The comprehensive online programming includes information about how offenders operate; how to recognize and respond to boundary violations, myths and facts about child sexual abuse and USA Swimming’s Athlete Protection Policies and Procedures.

The addition of the parent education represents the second phase of USA Swimming’s three-phase online education launch. The education for parents is optional, but strongly encouraged.

In September USA Swimming launched mandatory online education for its 30,000 coaches, non-athlete members and volunteers. USA Swimming requires all non-athlete members to complete this training as a condition of membership and trained 30,000 members in just nine months.

“Reaching a goal of this magnitude is a great achievement for USA Swimming in continuing its efforts to keep swimmers safe,” said Britt Darwin-Looney, Praesidium’s Director of Youth Development Services.

This fall, USA Swimming will additionally launch free online education for athletes.