Partners in Prevention
Safety doesn’t just mean spotting. It means taking a trauma-informed approach to helping our kids feel safe and supported both in and out of the gym, and recognizing that one out of every 10 kids you know, or even coach, has experienced child sexual abuse.
That’s why we’re offering the Darkness to Light Stewards of Children training for FREE to anyone affiliated with our mentoring program, and for a small donation for anyone not affiliated who would like to become a Partner in Prevention.
What is Darkness to Light?
Darkness to Light is a leader in child sexual abuse prevention education, research, and advocacy. We empower adults to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse through awareness, education, and stigma reduction. Our vision is a world free of child sexual abuse - a world in which adults form prevention-oriented communities that protect the child’s right to a healthy childhood.
A Partner in Prevention is an organization or business that commits the time and effort to educate themselves on how to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse. An organization receives the yearly Darkness to Light Partner in Prevention distinction when they have successfully met three requirements, which include:
1. Training over 90% of staff and volunteers in Stewards of Children®
2. Conducting routine background checks on staff and volunteers who work with youth
3. Implementing organization-wide policies and procedures to increase child abuse
prevention behaviors, including a policy that limits opportunities for one adult to be alone with one child
Both the Mentoring Program and “Darkness to Light Partners in Prevention” initiative are ways we as athletes can work to make our sport an empowering supportive community for everyone. There are multiple ways we can “leave it better than we found it” and certainly pushing new limits physically and seeing how athleticism in our sport has progressed is amazing, but another way to think about “leaving our sport better” is working to make it safe, inclusive, and supportive for all athletes.