Special Olympics Tennessee

The organization coordinates 36 volunteer training schools annually for coaches in all sports and other volunteers in areas of management, public relations, and fundraising to certify all to work with Special Olympic athletes.

Special Olympics Athletes have the opportunity to serve on boards, local area committees or other leadership roles with the support of a mentor. The Global Messenger Training Program invites outside facilitators to work with Special Olympics athletes in the ALPS program in the areas of public speaking, speeches and presentations. Athletes can also participate in training programs to become officials for competitions as well as coaches or assistant coaches.

Young athletes programs were started in 2009 to meet the demand for activities for 3 to 7 year old children with intellectual disabilities. These community-based programs consist of weekly "play" activities involving child and parent...ideally with a maximum of 12 families involved. The program introduces "young athletes" and their parents alike to Special Olympics activities as well as bringing them together socially as they learn the health, physical fitness and self-confidence building values of Special Olympics.

In 1990, Special Olympics introduced its first Healthy Athletes program with vision screening whereby volunteer specialist screen athletes attending state events and then provide them with glasses if needed free of charge. The program has been expanded over the years to include hearing and dental screenings, and most recently in 2010, a fitness and nutrition education effort to combat the obesity issues affecting all Tennesseans, but especially citizens with disabilities who have less access to resources. This project has been done in conjunction with the Governor's statewide program of "Get Fit TN".

In 2010, Special Olympics began a program to engage youth at the high school and middle school levels to become engaged with Special Olympics athletes in their schools as Unified Sports partners and friends. These "activation" activities include in-school campaigns to build respect and understanding for all people with disabilities. Most recently, participating schools have conducted in-school campaigns of Special Olympics' "Spread the Word to End the Word", a campaign to end the use of the word retarded in jokes and everyday language...teaching that words can hurt and the role of words in bullying. In 2018 Special Olympics TN and the TSSAA will partner to start Unified Sports programs in high schools that will be sanctioned high school competitions.