In the coming weeks, millions of children across the country will be getting ready to head into summer programming. Whether you’re a coach, activity leader, parent, volunteer, or adult who regularly interacts with youth partaking in extracurricular activities, now is the ideal time to take a moment to familiarize yourself with SafeSport’s educational resources so you can be aware of how to prevent and address abuse.

Your Playbook for Promoting Safety

Swim team, summer soccer leagues, and rec center activities. Kids of all ages are getting ready for an exciting summer season full of exploration, education, and experimentation with a new sport, activity, or skill.

Adults leading these seasonal programs have many responsibilities. But perhaps the most important—and sometimes overlooked—is the responsibility to keep children and teens safe.

Understanding the actions you can take to help protect youth participants from abuse and misconduct takes an extra amount of preparedness. SafeSport’s summer safety playbook and free resources can help bring you up to speed on what you need to know to be ready to recognize, prevent, and respond to abuse in your program or your child’s activity.

For Coaches & Activity Leaders

Spotting misconduct or identifying abuse are skills every coach should practice. Below, we’ve compiled helpful resources to support summer league coaches, camp counselors, and activity leaders:

1. Before a summer program begins, organizations often provide parents and guardians with their program’s policies to keep participants safe. Go a step further and stay aware of the latest abuse prevention guidelines—check out SafeSport’s Minor Athlete Abuse Prevention Policies, which are designed to put youth safety at the center of every activity.
2. Camp counselor or sports league coach, you can learn strategies for preventing abuse. Our Emotional and Physical Abuse and Misconduct Toolkit helps you understand the shape abuse can take in and around sport and other activities.
3. Do you know what bullying is and how to respond? Learn what you can do with our Bullying Prevention Handbook for Coaches of Minor Athletes.
4. Throughout the season, take breaks to expand your knowledge and learn best practices in abuse prevention education. Consider taking a free SafeSport course or getting both yourself and your fellow colleagues SafeSport® Trained.
5. Set your athletes and campers up for success. Learn how to create a positive environment this summer so participants can thrive.