Friday, September 16, 2011

Athlete Protection Training - a review of the training and test

I just finished the Athlete Protection Training program and test on the USA Swimming website.  To complete the program yourself click here.  In general I rate the program as a 4 out of 5 (they actually have a survey after you complete the program).  It is fairly simple and not too time consuming.

I don't know if I learned anything.  I have had to deal with abuse situations and with sexual predators around 1/2 dozen times in my coaching career.  I suppose this is a good program for those that have not had to deal with this stuff.  It probably would have been helpful back in the day when I was just starting out as a coach.

The only thing that niggled at me was the notice just prior to beginning the training:
Failure to complete the athlete protection training course will result in your membership privileges being suspended.
I just feel like the tone is intensely negative.  A simple "you are required to complete this training-course before your registration will be accepted" would suffice.  Does anyone else agree with me here?  Am I just too sensitive?  Oh well, it is done now.

I hereby officially state that my original fears about this program were off base.  But I think some of my reservation about the program has to do with the tone set by USA Swimming.  After all, we are working together to solve this problem.  Please don't treat me with such a negative tone.  I am not the enemy.  I think the tone set in the actual training itself is perfect.  Let's follow that tone.

2 comments:

  1. The module itself was not bad. I felt like it ran a little slow. I am not a speed reader by any means but after reading the blurbs it would take a little bit for the orange swimmer arrow to pop up. So making it take longer than needed. I also do not feel like I learned anything new.

    The problem that I had is that after doing the entire thing and taking the little quiz with correct answers my status lists as incomplete. My hope is that this is simply a glitch and I show as completed here soon as I do not want to do the whole thing over again.

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  2. Anon, I was concerned about my status as well, but apparently the Praesidium database does a "dump" to the USA Swimming database nightly. My status showed incomplete last night. Today, around noon, I checked and my status showed as complete. I am sure your status will change by tomorrow.

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