Our Commitment to Child Safety

When we opened Momentum Athletic Center we did so as naïve parents hoping to bring the thrill of gymnastics to as many young people in our community as possible. Our daughter has benefited so greatly from her experiences in the sport. We wanted to be part of sharing this experience with all of you. Gymnastics has so much to teach. It is such an amazing training ground to build strength, confidence, perseverance, and love. With the right teammates, coaches and parents it gives young people the opportunity to learn so much that will help them to become healthy, happy and productive adults. Child safety was something we assumed to be our primary concern.

We now know that the promise of gymnastics has been turned into something dark and sinister for too many. There are predators, and the people that enable them throughout the sport. We ask ourselves the question, “how?”. How could parents, and the adults that run gyms everywhere, allow these horrific acts to happen to children? How, when made known to them, could these same adults ignore the cries for help? How could coaches and parents continue to knowingly take their children back to the very people that have abused their children?

It is impossible for us to find the answers. We just know that pride and money became more important than children. Protecting the reputations of coaches and institutions became more important than the lives of the athletes. Big trophies and gold medals became more important than the integrity of this amazing sport.

This dark side of gymnastics sickens us. It is not just unacceptable, it must be driven out of the sport like a disease. We commit, with every resource available to us, to make this sport better… to make this corner of Colorado safe. This means focusing 100% of our time, energy and money on the athlete… your child. While performance and achievement are important, safety, security and the health of every athlete is, and will always be our paramount mission. We not only have a zero-tolerance for abuse and harassment, we actively identify and eliminate it from Momentum.  We commit to you that we will do everything in our power to ensure that Momentum is a place that will focus on every child and provide a safe and supportive environment that will allow her to grow to become the very best version of herself.

Child Safety

We encourage all parents of athletes, regardless of sport, to familiarize themselves with the US Center for Safe Sport, USA Gymnastics courses pertaining to athlete safety, and what constitutes inappropriate behavior in coaching.  Our Commitment to Child Safety goes beyond USAG requirements. In addition to having all of our coaches take the Safe Sport awareness and prevention curriculum, here are the steps we have taken to ensure that your child is always safe at Momentum:

  • Every coach is thoroughly interviewed, reference checked and has passed a background check prior to being hired
  • Every open space in the facility is covered by security cameras 24/7. The video records are maintained for weeks online. Every safety incident is reviewed by staff and ownership to ensure best practices and corrections in policies
  • We make these recordings available to any parent upon request
  • The live and recorded feeds of our security cameras are available to every parent through our Mojo View subscription service. We encourage you to regularly watch when you are not attending at the gym
  • Our coaches have all taken SafeSport safety, abuse, harassment awareness, and prevention training
  • No coach is ever allowed to be alone with an athlete without supervision
  • No adults, other than staff is ever allowed to be on the training floor during classes with the athletes
  • Management and Ownership are involved in and investigates any safety incident reported to us

Reporting Abuse

In addition to these steps, we need to encourage your assistance. Momentum needs to be a place where we ALL are actively caring for one another. Larry Nassar became a predator because the adults around him enabled his actions. There is no excusable threat to a child. Gymnastics is a hard sport with high demands, but there is no place for intimidation, abuse or harassment. No trophy, scholarship or profit is more important than a child. We need your help to instantly identify the slightest concern. With hundreds of eyes and hearts protecting our children we will ensure that our kids take only the best away from this incredible sport.

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