New USSF certification/recert/resource center

learning.ussoccer.com

Learning Center, separate website for coach certification and referee certification, Resource Center is in the Referee Program section of ussoccer.com

 

Ultimately the cert/recert for USSF referees lies in the hands of the State Associations. They are the ones who have to come up with the program.

 

Has anyone's state held a cert/re-cert clinic yet? Historically, this weekend is when the first one in VA is held, and that isn't happening. The website says to comeback in a few weeks, and it's been saying that for a few weeks.

 

I'm doing one Saturday in Texas. Its a Regional Clinic for STX that is also doubling as a bonus classroom/fieldwork session for Grassy Rooty recerts. The online module was all hosted on the US Soccer Resource Center site.

 

Our state sent an email stating that the USSoccer ncsi background check is available in the learning center. I can’t see where it is...

 

I will say that more than half of my time was spent on the Safe Sport module and certification. I have to do HR modules every year on this content so I was less than thrilled to do it again and I did it as quickly as the module let me. I know why they are requiring it but its not fun and if you are a new ref you may feel like its not worth the effort.

 

The Safe Sports training modules are like drinking from a fire hose. I don't remember officials even being mentioned, either. At least I only have to take it once rather than separately for each sports.

In track, they announced that officials had to do Safe Sports and, in our association, we lost 1/3 of the officials. They just never got around to sitting through the whole thing. For soccer, our state law requires annual training on the recognition and management of concussions. When that was introduced, we had about a 20% decrease in the number of officials. Again, people just never got around to doing the on line training. And now you have the multiplier effect of them having to do both concussion management and safe sports before you can do a game. Most of the referees I've worked with this year were not wearing 2019 badges.

Track had extended the Safe Sports requirement to all "volunteers." That became a major problem. Think the equivalent of club linesmen and rec team parent managers. Eventually, USATF was forced to say that it was only required for people that volunteer more than three times a year. But how that gets policed, I don't know.

Yes, all good stuff to know but it does reduce the number of officials just because of the mechanics of getting the training. I find it particularly frustrating because, in my experience as a state administrator, background checks on officials turned up problems for 00.006% of officials. YMMV. A lot of time, effort and expense to find a rare situation. No one has ever validated the value of training. "Don't molest kids." Gee, good to know. But does it actually stop molesters? The fact it is already a crime doesn't seem to stop some people. So what else could be done before the fact?

 

It took me more than 2 hours. As an assignor I see groups of refs every year that try working without badges. I expect that group will get bigger from this.

 

In Alabama for grassroots recertification, we have four online modules.
2020 Online Grassroots Referee Course,
2020 Grassroots Referee Re-Certification Quiz,
2020 Introduction to Safe and Healthy Playing Environments and
2020 SafeSport Training. As I understand it, you have to pass all four before the in-person class.

 

Sounds like this new training center really streamlined the referee training process. In the decade I've been doing this, I've experienced the same thing y'all have: more BS tests and training only pushes away the people who were on the fence to begin with.

A lot, if not all, of that module was irrelevant for officials. I deal with the kids for max 2 hours, and even then it's all spent making sure they don't kill each other. Checking if the coach has Roman hands or Russian fingers isn't something I'm really going to catch.

 

Passing a law against ‘X’ doesn’t keep people from doing ‘X’. It only makes doing ‘X’ illegal.

 

Pfft. And you probably think kids can get hurt even if the ref is doing a good job.

 

I just took the Alabama Grassroots New Ref course. All that's left is the In-person class... which will be next week.

I spent quite of bit of time doing SafeSport and Introduction to Safe and Healthy Playing Environments...



@voiceoflg Not sure what you mean but I don't have to take the Recert quiz because I am a new ref, I wager.

 

Thats the set I did. The quiz was a joke. It was at a very low level. Much lower than any recent test I have ever taken.

 

FYI it appears the requirements for Regional (Re)Certification have changed

Recert: https://ussoccer.app.box.com/s/p8mwwmo8ocj5qpmc6knnn50smj0kbe68/file/493735107732

2 Referee assessments, 1 at an adult level, 1 at a youth (U18/19) level
Must now complete an on-field training session, in conjunction with a Regional Referee Course

Certification:
3 Referee assessments, 2 at an adult level, 1 at a youth (U18/19) level
Must now complete an on-field training session, in conjunction with a Regional Referee Course

 

My opinion is that all training like this is not about somehow preventing the actual problem. It's about the covering the butts of people who might get sued if the problem occurs. Hey, we trained everyone, so not our fault if they did not adhere to the skills learned in the training.

Like you might not know the coffee was hot and you could get burned if you spilled it on yourself, but now there is a warning...........

 

My wife has volunteered for a number of years at a summer choir camp. She has to take training regularly for child protection, and that's a good thing.

Often it involves arriving at the camp a day earlier than the campers. One of the girls from our church (probably late elementary age at the time) was going to camp, and wondered why she had to get there early. I told her that my wife had to learn not to beat the kids. "But she knows that!" I replied yes, but that they had to certify that she knew it. :"Oh..." - yes, that made sense to her even at a young age. She realized that there was paperwork and procedures to be followed in every endeavor.

Edit: And that camper became a counselor a few years ago, so she had to take similar training. Except it's online now.

 

As much as I think it’s absurd to make people who make so little per hour spend significant unpaid time for that privilege, I must say I found the content of the safesport module to be very good- it is polished and thought provoking. Certainly it’s too long for the attention span of most people, so it might have been better split up and done over 2-4 sessions. But as a reminder of what our responsibilities are when in a position of power and influence, it is effective.

And yes, I did do it while I was in another meeting. I hate meetings

 

Safe Sport is just something that needs to be done. I work for a school district so I need to do their version which includes: 2 blood related, 1 Child abuse, 1 staff-student sexual misconduct, and 1 student information video in addition to typical employment videos for a total of 5+ hours. All of that despite the fact that I work in the IT department, administration building, doing programming, and the only students I will see is when I referee.

 

I volunteer at my catholic church. You may have read some things about them in recent years. My volunteering consists of driving those who are unable to get to doctor’s appointments, shopping, etc. We had about 40 volunteers at the first meeting. Then, they announced their version of safe sport would need to be completed before allowing one to volunteer. We only lost half the volunteers.

 

That's a bummer.

And this is something you should not skimp out on. Shame it went like that. Will we see the same attrition rate from referees?