February 2, 2023

Dear Club and League Representatives:

As a result of our ongoing efforts to ensure participant safety, I am pleased to relay that Danielle Henry now serves as MSYSA’s Participant Safety & Compliance Manager. Ms. Henry is MSYSA’s primary point of contact for affiliated clubs and leagues on ensuring compliance with MSYSA’s Athlete & Participant Safety Program.

Adopted in March 2019, MSYSA’s Athlete & Participant Safety Program includes six (6) key components. They include, background check screening, mandatory reporting requirements, training/education, prohibited conduct, limits on one-on-one interactions as well as monitoring and enforcement. The U.S. Center for SafeSport training modules are required of our team officials, club/league board members, etc. The trainings are intended to provide tools, vocabulary, and information to better monitor our sport, minimize the opportunities for sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and other types of misconduct, identify concerns and risks surrounding relationships with power imbalances, and respond to concerns. In addition, the U.S. Center for SafeSport has rolled out optional trainings for parents and athletes. They include: ‘Parent’s Guide to Misconduct in Sport’ training (30 min. course), ‘SafeSport for Youth Athletes’ (ages 13-17) and ‘SafeSport for Kids’ (ages 5-12). These trainings are free, and the youth trainings require parental consent. To access the parent and youth trainings, visit

https://safesporttrained.org/#/dashboard and create an account. Once logged in, click “Catalog” from your Dashboard, and then click “Enroll” in the course you want to take.

MSYSA generates over 10,000 background checks on annual basis. Each background check includes SSN validation, a national criminal search, a national sex offender records search, a state (Michigan) criminal records search, and a search of the U.S. Center for SafeSport’s Centralized Disciplinary Database. If/when an individual is disqualified as the result of an adverse background check, this information is shared with US Youth Soccer and US Soccer. As a reminder, should you or others need to make a report on suspected violations of MSYSA’s Athlete & Participant Safety Program, please visit our online reporting form, here.

In closing, when there are additional safety initiatives adopted by MSYSA and/or announced by U.S. Soccer’s Participant Safety Taskforce, you will be promptly informed.

Sincerely,

Thomas Faro

Executive Director

cc.:      MSYSA Board of Directors