Updated as of June 26, 2023

Starting this upcoming 2023-2024 season, JVA will no longer be accepting USAV background screens as a valid form of clearance for coaches participating in a JVA event. After multiple attempts to work with USAV to find a way to share information within the event management platforms in order to save club staff and our staff a lot of time and money, and to securely verify the validity of the screens, they were not able to meet us halfway.  That is the bad news.  The good news – our partners at AAU have upgraded their background screen to meet the USOPC’s Standards and The JVA Safety Policy.

ARTICLE: AAU’s Enhanced Background Screen Update

Moving forward, AAU Background Screens will be accepted as part of the JVA Safety Program. This means that all JVA Members and any adult on a roster at a JVA Insured Event must have either a JVA or AAU Background Screen.

There is even more good news.  We have been working together with AAU and AES to make sure that any AAU Certified coach in AES’s system will automatically be allowed on a JVA Event Roster. This means that AAU coaches wishing to participate in a JVA Insured Event will not have any additional hoops to jump through once they pass their AAU Background Screen.

This change in policy will allow us to have a tighter rein on the adults we are allowing at our events, and it will make the administrative duties significantly easier for all JVA and AAU adult members.

We recognize that this change puts USAV only members in a difficult position and will require more work on their end.  In the future, we hope to implement the same process with USAV that we now have with AAU. View more on JVA Background Screens here.

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Our youth athletes deserve to be safe, and JVA is committed to doing everything possible to protect our athletes from any form of abuse or danger. JVA’s first point of defense is our Gold Standard Background screen. Since 2015 JVA has been working with NCSI to manage background checks and safeguard our volleyball community. We require all adult club members to pass a Gold Standard Background Screen and Safety Training through either JVA or USAV.

USA Volleyball uses the same Gold Standard Background screen with NCSI. They also require Abuse Prevention training via Safe Sport. In order to save Club Directors and Coaches time, as well as money, JVA recognizes and accepts our National Governing Body’s Safety Process.

View the USAV Background Screen Policy

View the JVA Background Screen Policy

Currently, USAV will not give their members the option to share their personal background screen results with JVA directly through NCSI and AES. Therefore, coaches must go through the additional process of submitting this information directly to JVA through the JVA Background Screen Form. This process has been the root cause of much frustration for the thousands of Club Directors and Coaches trying to get approved for JVA Events.

We believe that it is the prerogative of the Coach completing the background screen to decide who has access to their background screen result. If the result could be shared, any USAV Verified Coach in AES would automatically be cleared to coach at a JVA event without having to go through the additional JVA Verification process.

Our recommendation is that USAV allows their Coaches to make this decision for themselves, whether to share or not share their background screen result with third party event management systems.

This could be as simple as adding a checkbox to their background screen application form that gives Coaches the option to share the status of their screen with third party event management systems.

We have reached out to USAV in an attempt to work together to find a solution that will save us all time and money. This could be a turning point in JVA/USAV relations if we can find a common ground to improve the junior club experience, and we are hopeful to work together on a solution.

In the meantime, we encourage USAV members to express your frustration and desire to find a solution directly with USAV. We believe this message will carry much more weight if it is coming directly from the members that they need to serve.

The JVA is a voice for junior volleyball clubs and their members, and we’ve heard our members loud and clear. We are hopeful that through collaboration, we can have a cohesive background screening process.

This article was authored by JVA Executive Director, Jenny Hahn, JVA Director of Operations, Erin Lehman, and JVA Director of Member Development, Lisa Wielebnicki.