Our Mission
Empowers children, teens, and young adult athletes to protect themselves and others from grooming and all types of abuse.
Provide detailed resources and support for parents, and organizations committed to creating safe, healthy environments.
Offer trauma-sensitive consultations and strategic planning for victims of abuse and their families.
Provide expert witness testimony.
Drive systemic change and legislation to prevent abuse.
Raise funds for teams, clubs, and organizations.
Unfortunately, age-appropriate educational materials for teaching children to recognize and prevent abuse are almost non-existent.
ABOUT US
Amy Saltzman M.D.
I am a former competitive gymnast, physician, mindfulness coach, author, victim/sur-thrivor of decades of covert emotional abuse, and expert on protecting children from abuse. I have a knack for translating difficult topics into “kid speak.”
I am passionate about preventing abuse in sports, schools, music programs, religious settings, and community activities. I am honored to serve on the US Soccer Federation Participant Safety Taskforce, created to protect athletes at all levels from abuse. I offer individual support, and group workshops on seeing, stopping, and healing from abuse.
I have created an internationally acclaimed program, three books, and two CDs for teaching mindfulness to children and adolescents to ease stress and difficult emotions. I teach mindfulness to people ages 3 and up.
I also support individual athletes, teams, clubs, high school and college athletic departments, and sports organizations from youth recreational leagues to professional teams in applying mindfulness to enhance physical, mental, and emotional health and well-being; and to achieve peak performance, experience joy, and find flow (or perhaps more accurately letting flow find them).
I offer services in person and via Zoom and am happy to create a program tailored to your needs and intentions.
Contact me to request introductory sessions and comprehensive workshops regarding:
- Preventing abuse
- Supporting athletes in maintaining physical, mental and emotional health and experiencing joy and finding flow
- Training positive, holistic, athlete-centered coaches
ABOUT US
Dr. Amy Saltzman
- Empowers children, teens, and young adult athletes to protect themselves and others from grooming and all types of abuse.
- Provides detailed resources and support for parents, coaches, teams and sports organizations committed to creating safe, healthy sports environments.
- Offers compassionate, trauma-sensitive consultations and strategic planning for victims of abuse and their families.
- Drives systemic change and legislation to prevent abuse.
- Raises funds for teams, clubs, and organizations.
ABOUT US
Dr. Amy Saltzman
Amy Saltzman M.D. is a physician, mother, former competitive gymnast, and victim/sur-thrivor of decades of grooming (aka covert emotional abuse/ coercive control). She is passionate about preventing abuse in sports, schools, music programs, religious settings, and all other contexts.
Dr. Saltzman is an internationally recognized expert who works with victims, families, and organizations to prevent, recognize and respond effectively and compassionately to all types of abuse.
In the wake of the Yates report (which detailed extensive abuse in the National Women’s Soccer League), Dr. Saltzman was appointed to the US Soccer Federation Participant Safety Taskforce. The Taskforce works to protect three million athletes (from youth players to professionals) from all types of abuse.
Dr. Saltzman empowers children, teens and young adults spot and stop the subtle patterns of grooming and the obvious behaviors of emotional, physical and sexual abuse. She is known for her knack for translating difficult topics into “kid speak.”
She offers the following services:
For victims of abuse and their families
- trauma-sensitive consultations
- strategic planning
- expert witness testimony in legal cases regarding grooming and all types of abuse
For institutions
- proactive development of comprehensive abuse prevention policies, including education of participants, parents and staff
- independent trauma-sensitive investigations
- support with making meaningful amends, holding abusers and enablers accountable, and implementing robust preventive measures
Marty Greenberg J.D.
Marty Greenberg J.D. is a recognized authority in sports law who founded the National Sports Law Institute at Marquette University Law School. He represents student-athletes in claims of alleged mental, emotional, physical, or sexual abuse and bullying by coaches, as well as institutional complicity by athletic directors and departments at sports clubs, high schools, universities and colleges. He has successfully represented student athletes across the country in sports including basketball, golf, horseback riding, softball, and swimming.
When allegations of abuse are asserted, he encourages the institution to hire an independent investigator.
When abuse has occurred, Mr. Greenberg recommends that institutions dismiss or sanction abusive coaches and institutional enablers, reinstate student scholarships and eligibility, pay the victim’s attorneys fees, and make public apologies for infliction of abuse.
If an institution fails to address his clients concerns, he helps clients find suitable means to bring the matter to the public’s attention (including getting stories picked up by the national news).
To learn more about his practice, click here.
Carla DiMare J.D.
Carla DiMare J.D. is a lawyer who has represented numerous high-profile clients, and handled disputes and cases for victims who lack the financial resources to hire a lawyer. She has handled many complex, high-profile cases involving multimillion-dollar settlements and awards. She has won many jury trials. A trained mediator, she engages in private dispute resolution in her cases whenever possible.
She has experience and success in cases involving sexual harassment and discrimination, assault, abuse (including Title IX sexual abuse) rapes and druggings at schools, colleges, and universities. She has represented survivors and those who have been falsely accused of sexual abuse under Title IX.
Her areas of expertise include the following:
- sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual abuse and Title IX claims.
- employment law, including sexual harassment (for plaintiffs and defendants), discrimination, wrongful termination and retaliation
- the False Claims Act (whistleblower claims), including a settlement of more than $1 million
- coercive control and cult abuse
Judge Rosemarie Aquilina
Judge, Advocate, Author
Rosemarie Aquilina was the judge in the trial of Larry Nassar (a US gymnastics team “doctor”, and one of the worst spiders ever). During the trial, Judge Aquilina empowered every gymnast abused by Nassar to speak in court.
After listening to 150 gymnasts describe terrible sexual abuse, she decided that the fair consequence for Nassar’s spider behavior was that he spend 120 years in prison. She showed judges how to honor and protect victims in court.
Judge Aquilina served as a judge in Michigan for sixteen years and in the Michigan Army National Guard for twenty years. Judge Aquilina is an adjunct professor at both Michigan State University (teaching Criminal Trial Practice, Civil Trial Practice, Trial Practicum, Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure) and Thomas M. Cooley Law School (teaching classes in Family Law, Advanced Trial Practice-Family Law, Legislative Process, Defending Battered Women, Animal Law, Child Abuse and Neglect, Elder Law, and Military Law). Throughout her career, Judge Aquilina has given back to the community in numerous ways. In addition, Judge Aquilina is a published author of one novel, with another novel coming soon. She has five children and two grandchildren and resides in East Lansing, Michigan.
Tianna Tashelle
Olympic Gold Medalist, Sur-thrivor, soon to be Therapist
Tianna Tashelle Madison is a three-time World Champion, two-time Olympian, and three-time Olympic Gold Medalist. She was winning medals while she was being abused by a spider. She wrote her book Survive and Advance to reclaim her power and to protect other people from spider abuse. Her book includes two pages of resources dealing with domestic violence, sexual assault, suicide prevention, eating disorder support and fibroid awareness. She is the proud mama of a beautiful baby boy. Currently she is studying social work at the University of Tennessee and hopes to use her voice and platform to support survivors on their recovery journeys.
Jennifer Fraser
Whistleblower, Advocate, Author
Jennifer Fraser PhD in Comparative Literature, and is an award-winning educator who was teaching in a university prep school in 2012 when she heard directly from student-athletes that they were being emotionally and physically abused by teachers who were coaching them in basketball. This is when Dr. Fraser began dismantling the system that claims to halt child abuse when in fact it enables it. Dr. Fraizer’s publications include – Teaching Bullies: Zero Tolerance on the Court or in the Classroom, and her most recent book, The Bullied Brain: Heal Your Scars and Restore Your Health, which explores the neuroscience of abuse, and healing from abuse.
Daniel Shaw
Sur-thrivor, Therapist, Author
Daniel Shaw, LCSW—was abused by a spider, and now helps people spot spiders, and recover from spider abuse.
Shaw is a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City and in Nyack, New York. He was involved in a spiritual organization and eventually recognized the cultic aspects of the group. This led him to become an outspoken activist in support of individuals and families traumatically abused by spiders in cults, and relationships of coercive control and undue influence. He is a sought-after teacher and speaker, author of many articles and book chapters, and faculty member and supervisor at The National Institute for the Psychotherapies in New York. His book, Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation, explains why some people become traumatizing narcissists (spiders), and was nominated for the distinguished Gradiva Award.
In 2018, the International Cultic Studies Association awarded him the Margaret Thaler Singer Award for advancing the understanding of coercive persuasion and undue influence. Shaw’s second book, Traumatic Narcissism and Recovery: Leaving the Prison of Shame and Fear, was published in 2021.
Dr. Carla Edwards
Sports Psychiatrist, Advocate
Dr. Edwards is a Canadian Sports Psychiatrist, and a passionate advocate for the protection of athletes and safeguarding of the sport experience. Her early years in competitive sport primed her for a career supporting athletes. In her clinical practice Dr. Edwards supports athletes from numerous National Sport Organizations, professional sports teams, Canadian Universities and youth sports organizations. She has authored several book chapters about Sports in the Covid-19 Era, Psychiatric Emergencies in Athletes, and Depression in Athletes. She is the current President of the International Society for Sports Psychiatry, and sits on the Board of Directors for the Canadian Academy of Sports and Exercise Medicine and the Student Athlete Mental Health Initiative.
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