CHICAGO – A new PSA series with the goal of raising awareness about sex abuse in sports is going viral.
It’s called “Out of Bounds” and its viewer engagement has been off the chart since launching six weeks ago.
“We got to 22 million views on some of the PSAs, and they were almost immediately being translated into different languages,” said Carrie Kehring, founder of “We Ride Together”. “I think we’re at 3 million views in Turkish. There’s over a million views in Russian.”
The mission behind “We Ride Together”
What we know:
“We Ride Together” is the non-profit that puts together the “Out of Bounds” PSA series.
“We Ride Together is a nonprofit organization created to ultimately to end sexual misconduct in youth and young adult sports. And we do that by giving a platform for awareness conversations, giving a place for people to tell their stories,” Kehring said.
The series consists of four PSA’s and two round table discussion videos hosted by a panel of experts from across the globe, including Olympic gymnast Margaret Holzer and Judge Rosemary Aquilina, who presided over the Larry Nassar case.
“So, what we really created was with the PSAs, a place to try to get people to understand what it feels like to be a victim, and also try to validate victims in their experience, right? And that’s been our feedback. Survivors who watch this say they’re laughing, and they’re crying, and it’s almost hysteria because they’ve never had something so succinctly explain what they’re feeling but then diving deeper with the discussions to really help survivors and their loved ones move forward, move forward through the very treacherous waters,” Kehring said.
A survivor’s perspective
What they’re saying:
Kehring found herself in those treacherous waters about six years ago when she says she found out one of her teenage daughters had been sexually abused by her 59-year-old coach.
“And I went out and looked for resources, right, like even just trying to understand like what is grooming? You know, what can I expect from law enforcement? What do these processes look like?” Kehring said.
Kehring says the information she found didn’t really explain what they were going through and what they could expect next.
“We tried to put things in those PSAs that we hear a lot when we talk to survivors. In one of the PSAs, the young woman is showering after that. I hear that again and again and again from victims and survivors. I can’t stop showering. So, we tried to really put the real-life things we see again and again so that anybody watching that could feel what it felt like to be a victim,” Kehring said.
Why it’s resonating
Why you should care:
She’s gotten similar feedback from this PSA.
“We focus on the sports space because, well, we have these discussions in schools with teachers, we have discussions in America. We don’t have them in sports,” Kehring said.
Kehring says 50% of athletes experience some form of abuse in sports, with the first time being between 13 and 15 years old. She also adds 90% of abuse victims know their perpetrator.
“There’s a massive lack of training and understanding about power imbalances and grooming, right? So that’s what we write together is tackling,” Kehring said.
Kehring says the “Out of Bounds” series is reaching so many because if you’ve been sexually abused, the after effects and experience to try and move forward is the same, whether it happened in a locker room or in a classroom.
The Source: This story was written and produced by the Fox 32 investigative unit, including an interview with “We Ride Together” founder Carrie Kehring.
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