USA Track & Field has been committed to creating a culture that clearly advocates, and provides for, a safe environment in which our athletes compete and train. We believe this is paramount to the success of all our programs.
For the safety of our athletes, particularly our youth athletes, as well as all our member participants, USATF adopted the USATF Safe Sport Program back in 2014. Safe Sport at USATF aims to prevent sexual misconduct and abuse, bullying, hazing, harassment, physical abuse, and emotional abuse in the sports of LDR, race walking, and track and field. Our goal is to create a clear culture of awareness to protect the participants in our sports at all levels.
USATF’s Safe Sport Program includes elements of governance, advocacy, education and communication, and compliance and monitoring. Additionally, an important aspect of USATF’s Safe Sport Program is the requirement that certain individuals within USATF be USATF 3-Step Safe Sport Compliant. USATF currently requires members of the following groups to be USATF 3-Step Safe Sport Compliant: National Office staff, Board of Directors, registered coaches, certified officials, authorized agents, club officers, National Team staff, National Committee Chairs, Association leadership, Youth Committee members, AAC members, AAC Event Leaders, all meet volunteers in an official capacity, Youth Camp staff, and vendors with access to athletes.
How to become USATF 3-Step Safe Sport Compliant as part of the USATF Safe Sport Program:
- Obtain a USATF membership.
- Successfully complete the applicable annual USATF background screen with NCSI (which includes acknowledgment of the USATF Safe Sport Handbook and an agreement to abide by the respective code of conduct).*
- Successfully complete Safe Sport training (either the Core course or appropriate Refresher course) available on USATF Connect before having contact with athletes, and in any event, within forty-five (45) days of assuming such position within USATF.**
*Please note: the USATF background screen does not apply to individuals younger than 18 years of age.
**Note: Safe Sport training is an annual requirement, meaning it should be completed once every 365 days.
Once these steps have been completed, all USATF 3-Step Safe Sport Compliant members will be listed on USATF’s Safe Sport Compliant List.
For additional resources, please visit the Safe Sport Section of the USATF website.