I took piano lessons from an elderly woman who had a piano in her basement. I think a lot of music teachers and even academic tutors still operate like this, at least I see notices for tutoring and learning the guitar posted around. Probably on a cash basis is my guess. Nobody is running checks on them. I can’t think of any sports other than horses that are so completely private sector just because the infrastructure for other sports tends to be public these days, pools, rinks, playing fields.
Sounds like something that could exist with a 3rd Party web site whose first priority (not 593rd) is to stay on top of the Google results with this information. Would not be terribly difficult & would stand as a nice counter-point to the efforts of AFE and the like.
I see what many of you are saying. And it’s true, they could just change the name of their business, and it isn’t up to USEF to monitor the internet.
But, IMO safesport was made with the goal to protect kids in sport. And they very clearly are not protecting a really large group of kids. I’d bet that more children are involved in riding outside of USEF than are involved in USEF.
Maybe there aren’t any really good answers to the problems. But, I don’t think it’s fair to blame the parents when you have to type in the persons name, not the farm name, and then the listing for safesport isn’t until the 6th or 7th place down, and then when you click on it a list of names pops up, in which you have to scroll through it to find the persons name, and then you get a one sentence description that just leaves anyone not involved in the criminal justice system confused.
Surely there is a better solution here?
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People need to take responsibility for themselves and their children. There are many many trainers out there who should have been turned in and haven’t. Like wise many people whose lives have been ruined for naught
Riding schools in the UK are licenced by the local authority and have annual inspection to ensure minimum standards for horse welfare, tack condition, facilities, health and safety, insurence. Also BHS and ABRS certification require evidence of policies such as child protection. The cost of insurence policies alone help to focus the owner’s mind. It isn’t a perfect system but enough yards do a good job so that the outliers are obvious. Child protection training and policies in place are a positive selling point for a business.
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I agree. In the end, it is parents who are ultimately responsible for providing a safe environment for their children, you can’t entrust any organization, no matter how big or small, to do the job for you, not schools, not church organizations, not sports clubs, not even the Boy Scouts.
Even if a parent has no idea what Safe Sport is, the name in and of itself should be a pretty good clue when it pops up on Google that a name associated with something called safe sport should be further investigated. In addition, I’m not an attorney, but I know in the business world privacy laws are very strict. For instance, a business who has fired someone for good cause, even something like theft or harassment, cannot give out information as to what the cause was, even to another business calling for employment verification. All that can be said is that the person was fired, but not why. I would venture to guess Safe Sport has to operate under certain restrictions as to what information can be publicly shared about each case.
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I also worry about children being at risk while riding/doing riding-related activities. But like any industry that has no single licensing body-- I don’t see how some sort of wholly inclusive, freely available database is possible. Do we really want the USEF deciding who can offer one lesson a week in a backyard barn on a personal horse or who can give pony rides at a birthday party? Where would the money come from to license/track/regulate every person who interacts with children and horses? To police who was following the rules? To create and run this all-inclusive database? This is a classic problem with any industry that is not federally regulated, and I am not sure any of us really want riding to be federally regulated.
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It seems to me that you’re saying that everything is hunky dory because anyone being abused now deserves it (or at least their parents deserve to have it happen to their kids, because they weren’t smart enough or not relentless enough or not something enough).
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Everyone is wanting someone else to take responsibility. At some level you need to be responsible for yourself. Outside of the hs world how do people function?
You have regularly chimed in on these threads disdainful of safesport and the very idea that as humans we have some obligation to one another, particularly children.
Just so everyone knows who you are.
If you don’t care about other people, you should avoid them. And us. Like leave and don’t come back.
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Is this a new requirement? I have multiple kids competing in rated shows, all kids are USHJA/USEF members and have never had to complete SS training.
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You know, you’re right @TrophyHusband. I thought all members who initially signed up had to take SS training (regardless of age), but now I think it’s only members over the age of 18 have to. Which seems counterintuitive to me. Surely it’s as important for potential victims to know their rights and the reporting numbers/procedure as it is for adult members? Is that really true that there is no training/information aimed directly at minors? If so, I think that’s really misguided and I would be in support of some training/information (different than the training/information) for minor member as well.
USEF/USHJA should require a parent/guardian to acquaint themselves with SS, I agree.
Unfortunately, 90% of lesson kids will never become USEF/USHJA members, so it becomes even more important that USEF/USHJA do the necessary web development and SEO to ensure that a non-member-parent who types in a suspended/banned trainer’s name into Google/Bing/etc. is likely presented with this information without too much additional digging.
Maybe USEF can devote a sliver of the money they spend flying billionaire’s horses around the globe to this pursuit… 
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I mean, I think I’ve made it clear that I don’t believe it’s the USEF’s responsibility to control how Google displays hits… and that the SS database already has the relevant information for someone who thinks/knows to look. But I 100% agree that parents/guardians and minor USEF members should have training and materials specific to them. I assumed they did and I’m somewhat surprised that’s not the case.
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I guess parents need to assume everyone out there teaching kids is a perv until proven otherwise - It’s a sad time - but it is a reality
