Spirit Board President Shares Update on Reorganization and Safety Efforts
Friends,
As we embark on a new era with Spirit of Atlanta, I am sharing with you the organization's progress in developing a new strategy to help make safety our top priority. The result of this work is a comprehensive plan to define, educate, and raise awareness of harassment, diversity, and conduct-related issues; create and execute a response mechanism that helps and protects victims; and thorough training protocols that support staff, volunteers and students become aligned on how to recognize and respond to victims of abuse. While this is just the beginning of our efforts, I hope it provides the foundation for Spirit of Atlanta to grow as a leader in the fight against abuse in the drum corps and marching arts activity.
In the Spring, the Spirit of Atlanta Board of Directors began our due diligence by reaching out to youth safety, risk management, and human resources experts. We have received feedback and advice from many sources, including SafeSport, DCI member organizations,
and experts from outside the activity. In March, we teamed up with Shelba Waldron, head of member safety with USA Gymnastics and a SafeSport advocate. Ms. Waldron was instrumental in helping to rebuild USAG's member safety policies in the wake of a national high visibility scandal and has successfully guided USGA's program into one of the most respected in all of youth sports.
Through Ms. Waldron's efforts, Spirit has designed and completed a comprehensive conduct guide for student performers and adults and provided the groundwork for extensive training programs that will commence this winter. She has also developed new reporting guidelines and processes, investigation protocols, and a tiered system for identifying various situations and how to report. All these documents are available for the public to review on the Spirit of Atlanta website.
One of the hallmarks of our approach will be a newly developed, best-in-class training program. This live, interactive instruction will establish conduct guidelines and provide students and staff with real-world situational exercises and the tools to help each person confidently evaluate and respond to conduct issues. Both students and adults will be required to complete these programs before the beginning of spring training.
Spirit of Atlanta is also committed to ensuring its staff and volunteers live up to the high expectations of our peers in the youth sports world. All board members, staff members, member-facing educators, and volunteers must complete and become certified in SafeSport USA policies and procedures. This extra layer of training will help our team be even better prepared to identify and react appropriately to any situations that may arise.
With the skilled help of nonprofit executive Vicki Ferrence Ray (Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership – Chief National Programs Officer, YEA – Executive Director, Cadets Arts & Entertainment – Compliance Officer and Chair Equality and Inclusion), we have reviewed and revised nearly every youth safety and risk policy for the organization. These updated policies, which cover various subject matters, including food safety, rehearsal policies, guidelines, and medical protocol, help us to reaffirm our commitment to the performer and give them a world-class experience. The Spirit board of directors has accepted these documents, which will continue to be refined in the coming months and long into the future.
As Spirit was developing our policy supporting youth safety, risk, and corps management protocols, I wanted to ensure that our efforts did not exist in a vacuum and that we had the benefit of an audit by an external team. This team must have diverse representation and be under a woman's leadership. The result was a three-person task force comprised of women, one a minority, and one with representation from the LGBTQ community. This task force benefited from reviewing every document, policy, protocol, and guideline developed. They provided their comments and feedback directly to me to be implemented. I am proud of the work this team performed, and I thank each of them for contributing to the safety of our members, staff, and volunteers.
We have also teamed up with online reporting software company FaceUp to provide a confidential reporting tool that allows anyone to report incidents of abuse and other concerns anonymously. These reports will go directly to a team of administrators and board members and be followed up within 24 hours. The FaceUp tool is now live on the SoA website and can be reached by clicking here.
We're also excited to announce that we've completed the hiring process for Spirit of Atlanta's first Sr. Director of Compliance and Safety. She will manage our safety and training program and conduct all response efforts. We will make a public announcement and introduce this key leadership position in the coming weeks.
I want to personally thank the many people that have contributed to this effort: from our board of directors to the many experts and corps that reached out and helped to guide us through this process, and to our friends at DCI and the board do directors for their guidance and support. To the members of the diversity committee to the alum volunteers that have reviewed these documents and given us fantastic feedback. Your voices are part of this process and have helped us to guide these efforts. It indeed has been the work of a community of people that have helped us transform this organization, and we are forever grateful.
Lastly, please know that this work is not done. This is just the beginning. Our commitment to the safety and well-being of our members and everyone in the drum corps community will live on through this effort. Our sincerest hope is that we can make a difference and share what we've learned to strengthen this activity. Thank you for being so supportive, and as always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions.
Yours truly,
George Dickinson
President, Spirit of Atlanta Board of Directors