Building a Positive Sport Culture

[Kelsey Erwin]

Hear from U.S. Center for SafeSport's Chief Executive Officer, Ju'Riese Colón.

Sport is powerful. It can teach leadership skills, build camaraderie, and demonstrate what real teamwork looks like. Sport builds resiliency and has created heroes and role models for many of us, myself included. But, when something is so powerful, it doesn’t take much for the pendulum to swing the other way. And we’ve all seen what that looks like – people and institutions that were trusted, believed in, and supported by many have managed to use that power to do harm.

Over the past five years, the U.S. Center for SafeSport has worked to usher in a new era of accountability to build and enforce structures that support youth in their athletic journeys. For the Center, this started with the introduction of the Minor Athlete Abuse Prevention Polices (MAAPP), a set of comprehensive policies that focuses on creating safe environments and clear guidelines to help sporting organizations implement practices that put safety first. The MAAPP limits one-on-one contact, defines prohibited conduct, and lays out stronger team travel requirements for youth. These policies also identify who should be trained to report sexual, emotional, and physical abuse and misconduct, going further than many mandatory reporting laws by creating additional layers of protection.

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