National Cheer Safety Month is a dedicated time for the cheerleading community to focus on promoting safety practices, increasing awareness about injury prevention, and fostering a safer environment for all participants. The 2026 theme is “Start Every Season with Safety.” The beginning of a new season sets the tone for everything that follows. This is when athletes build fundamentals, coaches establish expectations, and programs create the culture that will carry them through the year. By making safety the first priority, we help athletes develop healthy habits, reinforce proper technique, encourage positive team environments, and ensure everyone is prepared to recognize, minimize, and respond to potential risks. Safety isn’t just something we practice. It’s the foundation for confidence, performance, and long-term success. That’s why this year’s National Cheer Safety Month theme is Start Every Season with Safety.
Through education, awareness, and a commitment to safety, National Cheer Safety Month aims to minimize risks and ensure that cheerleading remains a fun, healthy, and secure activity for all. By doing our part, we can collectively keep cheerleading and STUNT safe.
Follow our socials and join us back here each week of National Cheer Safety Month for more information on how to Start Every Season with Safety!
iCheerSafe Pledge
Join thousands of athletes and coaches around the world taking the #iCheerSafe pledge to celebrate National Cheerleading Safety Month.
Safety Data & Research
Available data and research shows that cheerleading is a safe activity for athletes of all ages.
Join the Conversation
Follow our socials and share how you’re starting this season with safety!
Let’s kick off NCSM by updating your social media profile pics and taking the iCheerSafe Pledge with your team!
Kick off the season by making safety your first priority. Review your program policies, complete required training (heat illness, concussion, athlete protection, and rules), and ensure your Emergency Action Plan is in place before athletes take the floor.
August 4th – Free TrueSport Webinar: The Hidden Impact: Concussions and Female Athlete
Date & Time: Aug 4, 2026 06:30 PM US Central Time
Female athletes experience sport-related concussions at higher rates than their male peers and often face greater symptom burden and longer recovery times. In this evidence-informed webinar, TrueSport Expert Dr. Michele LaBotz, MD, FAAP explores the latest research on concussion in young female athletes, including differences in incidence, symptoms, and recovery patterns. Participants will gain practical insights into sex-specific risk factors, effective sideline recognition and management, and strategies for safe return-to-learn and return-to-play. The session will also highlight strategies to reduce concussion risk while supporting performance, along with actionable guidance tailored for coaches, athletic trainers, and parents to foster a safer sport environment.
Safety Meeting and Take the Pledge!
You know what to do! Dedicate part of your practices to safety topics and reinforce safety at every practice, game, and performance. Talk to your team about the iCheerSafe pledge and have everyone complete the pledge. Post to your team socials that you’ve taken the pledge and be sure to tag us!
Review Protocols for Emergency Plans and Return to Play
Injury prevention is the goal, but in case an injury does happen, response and return protocols should be in place and followed to help prevent further injury.
Do you have your emergency action plan ready for this season? Review Emergency Action Plans here.
Do you know your concussion return protocols? Review our concussion resources here.
Education for All!
Coaches, athletes, and parents should be up to date on training to start the season. For coaches, that includes attending camps and conferences to state up to date on the latest rules, skills techniques, and developing a culture of safety. For everyone, it means taking the appropriate courses on concussion awareness and athlete abuse prevention. Athletes and parents are a key component in program safety when they are properly informed and vigilant!
Work on Your Fundamental Skills and Spotting
Learn about the Bear Hug catching technique.
Don’t skip the “small stuff”! Start your season by reinforcing good technique in basic low-level partner stunts and spotting drills. This helps set a solid foundation for the more advanced skills to come! This is also a good opportunity to mix and match bases, tops, and backspots. Coaches often find that there’s a better group dynamic they didn’t know about just by trying new combinations at lower levels. Spotting drills reinforce that safety is a key component in every part of your program.
Check the Condition of Your Mats
Is the carpet peeling away from the foam? Do your velcro strips no longer stick to the carpet? Now is the time to check all of your mats and any other equipment before the season gets underway. Pro tip: Budget for at least one new mat roll every year, then cycle out the oldest mat!
Injury prevention is the focus of cheerleading safety. Taking a little extra time to prevent an injury from happening in the first place means you’re not on the bench recovering, the whole teams is available for your routine, and you can progress to more advanced skills faster! There are several important steps all stakeholders can take to minimize the risk of an injury occurring in your cheer program.
Bring Your Best!
Starting with simple good health, proper conditioning, and mental preparedness is a great way to help avoid injury. Athletes should complete a sports physical before participation, use the pre-season and early season to physically prepare the body, and learn sports psychology skills to help focus on the skill being performed.
Follow the Rules for Your Level
Rules are in place to restrict certain types of skills that may create an undue risk of injury, especially an injury to the head, neck, and back of the athlete. Each level has different rules that address the unique characteristics of that level. Be sure to stay within your rule level to minimize risk of an injury.
Order Your 2025-26 NFHS/USA Cheer Spirit Rules Book (or get the Safety Month Special!)
Take the Comprehensive High School Rules Course or Changes Course
Use Skill Progressions and Stay Within Your Ability Level
An important piece of keeping yourself safe is knowing your limitations. Just because you’ve seen another team perform something doesn’t mean it’s safe for you. Don’t just throw something because you’re on a mat or because you have extra spotters. There’s a better way to try that skill. Start by being honest about your current abilities and then make a plan to achieve your goal safely.
Follow proper skill progressions when learning new skills. This means starting with the fundamentals and perfecting them before moving to the next difficulty level. For example, your elevator prep should be solid before ever extending. Your double based extension should be solid before ever trying a liberty. If you find that stunts are shaky or falling, you may need to take a step back and work on the leadup skills some more! It might feel like you’re advancing more slowly, but setting up a good foundation will pay off in the long run!
Resources for skill progressions
Use Spotters and Matting Effectively
Even when following the rules and using skill progressions, falls can and do occur, especially when learning new skills. While they should never be put in place of skill progressions, using spotters and mats can be an effective tool in preventing a fall from becoming an injury, especially a serious one. Spotters should be actively trained in progression just like skills, demonstrating proficiency at spotting lower-level skills before moving to more advanced skills.
Know How to Dismount Safely
Even under the best conditions, stunts and pyramids can come down. Know when a stunt is beyond “saving” and be sure to safely lower the top, release their feet, and catch them safely, OR sweep to a controlled cradle position. If falls are happening too often from a skill, that’s a sign to go back to the previous progression and solidify your technique.
Connect with your Athletic Trainers
Athletic trainers play a crucial role in preventing and minimizing sports injuries. They can help design and implement injury prevention programs, educate athletes on proper techniques, and provide immediate care for injuries when they occur. They are a key component of an emergency action plan and can also work with athletes on rehabilitation and overall health and wellness. Athletic trainers also help track injuries and provide data to national injury surveillance programs that help monitor changes in safety rules and training. Don’t wait until National Athletic Training Month in March to thank your AT!
Read about the Important Role of Athletic Trainers and Athlete Care
This week we go beyond just preventing injuries and work to protect the whole athlete, which means creating a positive environment, addressing mental health, and being safe from bullying, abuse, and misconduct. This week, we focus on our partnerships that help provide training to coaches, athletes, and parents to help address these important issues.
Body Positivity and Confidence
Creating a body-positive environment is a crucial component in our collective mission of ensuring athletes reap the many rewards that sports have to offer. Read about how you can help create a culture where athletes feel safe, supported, and focused on what their bodies can do—not how they look.
USA Cheer is proud to support the Body Confident Sport program to help girls build body confidence and make sports a place where girls feel like they belong. Body Confident Sport provides coaches with the materials they need to increase girls’ body confidence, body image and self-esteem through sport. Download the tools today to help girls build body confidence and make sports a place where they feel like they belong.
Watch our special webinar with Body Confident Sport and take the free coaches’ training!
Body Positive Resources:
Read more about USA Cheer’s Body Positivity Initiatives
“Coaching HER®” Courses
The Tucker Center, who developed the Body Confident Sport program, has created a powerful set of coaching resources designed to help more girls get and stay in sport through critical drop-out ages of 11-17, so they can stay active, healthy and thrive across their lifespan. Coaching HER® has provided USA Cheer with their FREE courses. They address the often-overlooked issues that affect girls’ and women’s performance, confidence, sport participation, and overall experience—specifically, the unconscious gender biases and stereotypes held by coaches.
Find Coaching HER® courses on the USA Cheer learning platform
Hazing and Bullying Prevention
All spaces should be safe spaces free from bullying and hazing, and cheer is no different. These actions are the opposite of what makes a team great. Strong team bonding and inclusiveness will set the foundation for achieving your goals faster. Coaches and administrators should make it clear that there is a zero-tolerance policy for bullying and hazing, and veteran athletes should show leadership by ending any “traditions” that demean or harm parts of your team. Taking it a step further, cheerleaders should be the “upstanders” in their schools, setting an example and helping to create a school spirit environment where everyone is welcome.
Read more about Bullying Prevention and be sure to join us in October
Preventing, Recognizing, and Reporting Abuse and Misconduct
It is vital that all stakeholders are aware of how to prevent, recognize, and report abuse and misconduct. The USA Cheer Athlete Protection Courses for coaches, athletes, and parents help inform everyone of policies that take away opportunities for abuse to awareness of red flags to steps for reporting. All USA Cheer members are required to complete this training and are subject to the USA Cheer Code of Conduct and Minor Athlete Abuse Prevention Policies.
Safety Month Special!
Starting Aug 1 – Take an additional $5 off of the USA Cheer Cheerleading Safety Manual or the Safety Manual/High School Rules Book Combo!
Help us Start this Season with Safety!
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State associations and organizations, Use our Toolkit to share NCSM with your members!