Making AYSO a truly “Safe Haven”

“Do I really have to fill out this entire form in order to help out an AYSO team? It’s such a hassle, and it’s all just to devote a few hours a week to a cause that should be happy to have me as a volunteer, right?”

Are you getting these types of questions from your volunteers?

The best way for you to respond to this type of question is simply:

“They’re your children. How safe do you want us to be with them?”

Yes, we are thrilled that family, friends and others are willing and able to assist with our young team members in AYSO; but we have a duty to protect both the volunteer as well as the children in their charge.

Since 2000, AYSO’s Safe Haven has been the premier child and volunteer protection program that was the first of its kind in youth sports.

The child protection aspect is intended to stop child abuse, educate or remove its perpetrators, and screen out predators before they get into the program. It includes proactive steps which provide a medium for positive, healthy child development. This is accomplished, among other things, through our background checking system.

Every volunteer with an application sent to the NSTC for processing is subject to a national sex offender registry check. Those working the closest with children, like coaches, are put through a “targeted” background check where all criminal history is reviewed.

Like the rest in background checking community, we experience an approximate 12 percent “hit rate” for some sort of violation. Over the seven year period that Safe Haven has been operating for AYSO, there have been five registered sex offenders identified who were attempting to become AYSO volunteers. In the past year alone, there have been 521 of potential volunteers who have been categorized as “Do Not Use” as a safety precaution.

And there is no way for us to measure the deterrent effect of such a thorough collection of information.

We do know, however, that AYSO enjoys some of the lowest liability insurance rates in the industry due to our diligent efforts to screen out would be perpetrators.

But we can only provide these services when we have a completed form on file for each and every volunteer. And while there is no way to ever weed out any and all potential child abusers; it is entirely impossible to do so without properly collected information.

So the next time that you get a question from a potential volunteer about the necessity of the volunteer form, remember, AYSO is all about a safe experience in soccer for our children.