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I am pleased and honored to have Kidpower featured in 2 new videos produced in partnership with Jim Thompson, Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) Founder and CEO, and Mark Murphy, Green Bay Packers President and CEO.
In each video, Mark leads off with a strong appeal to parents, coaches, and youth sports leaders to take action to protect youth athletes from sexual abuse. Jim and I give specific advice, much of which comes from Kidpower, on what adults need to know and do to keep kids safe from child molesters – and on what we need to teach our kids. Jim concludes with a moving appeal to take leadership in keeping kids safe.
Each video includes a role play about a parent or a youth sport leader approaching a coach with a concern and the coach responding positively, providing modeling for how to handle potential problems.
PCA — a national nonprofit leader dedicated to developing “Better Athletes, Better People” by providing all youth and high school athletes a positive, character-building youth sports experience– is recommending that the tens of thousands of youth sports leaders, coaches and parents they reach each year use these videos as training tools and the accompanying recommended policy templates and tips handouts as resources in developing their own sexual abuse prevention policies and practices.
The new videos can be downloaded to computers so that they can be played back even without Internet access by schools and youth sports organizations to provide training to coaches, youth sports leaders, and parents. They currently have a closed captioning option and will soon have these captions available in Spanish and other languages as well.
Kidpower and PCA’’s Protecting Youth Athletes From Sexual Abuse Video series includes Key Actions for Parents and Key Actions for Youth Sports Leaders.
In addition, we have worked with PCA to develop these resources:
Kidpower & PCA Youth Sports Child Abuse Prevention Policy (2-page template)
Resources for Parents & Coaches (one-page handout)
Resources for Youth Sports Leaders (one-page handout)
Kidpower has been working with PCA since 2011 to develop resources specifically to address the problems of sexual abuse in youth sports, starting with a webinar series shortly after the first news stories about the Sandusky case.
Beth McGreevy, Kidpower Tech and Media Strategy Advisor, filmed and produced a pilot video that was used as the basis for these Key Action videos. PCA then funded production of the videos by Schecter Films with the help of sponsorship from the National Football League’s Green Bay Packers and KidSafePlus®.
As Jim Thompon, PCA Founder and CEO, says, “We wish this wasn’t necessary, but we know that sexual abuse in youth sports is a reality.”
We so appreciate PCA for facing this reality and partnering with Kidpower to do something to make a difference!
With heartfelt thanks to everyone who made this project possible,
Irene van der Zande
Kidpower Founder and Executive Director
P.S. My thanks to each of you who sent such nice notes and good wishes in response to my article about my father’s 90th birthday. We had a wonderful celebration, and he truly appreciated all of them.
Published: July 31, 2013 | Last Updated: October 10, 2014
Irene van der Zande, Kidpower Founder and Executive Director
Kidpower Founder and Executive Irene van der Zande is a master at teaching safety through stories and practices and at inspiring others to do the same. Her child protection and personal safety expertise has been featured by USA Today, CNN, Today Moms, the LA Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Publications include: cartoon-illustrated Kidpower Safety Comics and Kidpower Teaching Books curriculum; Bullying: What Adults Need to Know and Do to Keep Kids Safe; the Relationship Safety Skills Handbook for Teens and Adults; Earliest Teachable Moment: Personal Safety for Babies, Toddlers, and Preschoolers; The Kidpower Book for Caring Adults: Personal Safety, Self-Protection, Confidence, and Advocacy for Young People, and the Amazon Best Seller Doing Right by Our Kids: Protecting Child Safety at All Levels.
