On February 14, 2018, the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017 was signed into law and became effective immediately. The legislation is available for download HERE. The U.S. Center for SafeSport has released a fact sheet about the legislation which can be found HERE.

In addition to the U.S. Center for SafeSport’s factsheet, which provides information regarding the entire law, we wanted to provide additional detail on the specific mandatory reporting of child abuse requirements included in the new legislation because these requirements may impact you immediately:

• The bill amends the Victims of Child Abuse Act of 1990 to extend the duty to report suspected child abuse, including sexual abuse, within 24 hours to all adults who are authorized to interact with minor or amateur athletes by a national governing body, a member of a national governing body, or an amateur sports organization that participates in interstate or international amateur athletic competition. These individuals are called “covered individuals” in the new legislation.

• Child abuse is defined as physical or mental injury, sexual abuse or exploitation, or negligent treatment of a child.

• Per current federal regulations, reports of child abuse should be made to the local law enforcement agency or local child protective services agency that has jurisdiction to investigate reports of child abuse or to protect child abuse victims or to the FBI. These regulations have not yet been updated to reflect the recent change in the law. Until such time as the regulations are updated, U.S. Soccer will make reports to (1) local law enforcement where any alleged incident took place to the extent it can be determined and the incident occurred in the United States, (2) local law enforcement where the victim resides if different than (1), and (3) the FBI.
  
  
• An individual who is required, but fails, to report suspected child sexual abuse is subject to criminal penalties including fines and up to one (1) year in jail.

• These obligations are in addition to any State law requirements that an individual may have in a particular jurisdiction.

As provided in USSF Policy 212-3, U.S. Soccer members who are applicable amateur sports organizations under the SafeSport Act are required to offer training to parents and minor participants. While associations are not required to use the training from the Center for SafeSport, communicating and offering this training meets your obligations under Policy 212-3.  Organizations are not required to track which parents and individual youth athletes take this training. Rather the obligation is to ensure documented evidence that this free training has been offered to all youth (and their parents.)  The obligation to track training for adult participants (coaches, administrators, etc.) remains unchanged.

NCYSA encourages all of our associations and affiliates to use these USSF modules for their  minor aged volunteers working with younger players and/or the TOPSoccer program instead of the Ministry Safe/Abuse Prevention Systems training to fulfill the requirement of Abuse Prevention Training. The Ministry Safe program was designed for adult training only and is not appropriate for minors unless the minor is supervised by a parent or guardian for the duration of the training and testing.

As a reminder, all minor aged volunteers must have a KidSafe pass on them when they are working with younger players and/or the TOPSoccer program.  Associations will be able to order their own KidSafe passes within the new NCYSA SinC HQ system.  This function is not active yet but will be soon. A KidSafe pass can only be printed for those minors that have completed a 2020-21 Risk Management application.  (A background check is not ordered for anyone under the age of 18 years old). 

Email Wendy Burns or Joette Kivett with any questions.