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      Sport Administrators' Perspectives on Advancing Safe Sport

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          Abstract

          Numerous international high-profile cases of athlete abuses have led to efforts to advance what has been termed “Safe Sport.” Sport and coaching organisations are urgently designing and implementing policies, procedures and programmes to advance a culture of safe sport. However, we posit that these endeavours are occurring without a conceptual framework about what constitutes safe sport or how to achieve it. Without a consistent conceptual framework for safe sport, prevention and intervention initiatives may not be fully realised. As such, the purpose of the study was to explore sport administrators' perspectives of how to advance safe sport. Given the leadership positions sport administrators hold, understanding their perspectives may be helpful in informing a framework to guide the development and implementation of safe sport strategies. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 13 sport administrators from different sport and coaching organisations to elicit views on how best to advance safe sport. The findings indicated that a multi-faceted approach embracing multiple advancement strategies was reportedly essential for progressing safe sport. Specifically, the sport administrators recommended that sport organisations establish a universal framework of safe sport, design and implement education, implement and enforce policies, establish independent monitoring and complaint mechanisms and conduct research to ensure that advancement strategies are current and applicable. The participants suggested that these advancement strategies are necessary to evolve sport from a culture that embraces hegemonic masculine narratives, interpersonal violence and controlling coach–athlete relationships, to a culture of sport that extends the safe sport focus beyond the prevention of harm to the promotion of positive values and human rights. The findings were interpreted through a safeguarding lens to propose a framework for achieving safeguarding sport, defined by the prevention of harm and the promotion of positive values in sport.

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          Most cited references30

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          Positive Deviance among Athletes: The Implications of Overconformity to the Sport Ethic

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            International Olympic Committee consensus statement: harassment and abuse (non-accidental violence) in sport.

            Despite the well-recognised benefits of sport, there are also negative influences on athlete health, well-being and integrity caused by non-accidental violence through harassment and abuse. All athletes have a right to engage in 'safe sport', defined as an athletic environment that is respectful, equitable and free from all forms of non-accidental violence to athletes. Yet, these issues represent a blind spot for many sport organisations through fear of reputational damage, ignorance, silence or collusion. This consensus statement extends the 2007 IOC Consensus Statement on Sexual Harassment and Abuse in Sport, presenting additional evidence of several other types of harassment and abuse-psychological, physical and neglect. All ages and types of athletes are susceptible to these problems but science confirms that elite, disabled, child and lesbian/gay/bisexual/trans-sexual (LGBT) athletes are at highest risk, that psychological abuse is at the core of all other forms and that athletes can also be perpetrators. Harassment and abuse arise from prejudices expressed through power differences. Perpetrators use a range of interpersonal mechanisms including contact, non-contact/verbal, cyber-based, negligence, bullying and hazing. Attention is paid to the particular risks facing child athletes, athletes with a disability and LGBT athletes. Impacts on the individual athlete and the organisation are discussed. Sport stakeholders are encouraged to consider the wider social parameters of these issues, including cultures of secrecy and deference that too often facilitate abuse, rather than focusing simply on psychopathological causes. The promotion of safe sport is an urgent task and part of the broader international imperative for good governance in sport. A systematic multiagency approach to prevention is most effective, involving athletes, entourage members, sport managers, medical and therapeutic practitioners, educators and criminal justice agencies. Structural and cultural remedies, as well as practical recommendations, are suggested for sport organisations, athletes, sports medicine and allied disciplines, sport scientists and researchers. The successful prevention and eradication of abuse and harassment against athletes rests on the effectiveness of leadership by the major international and national sport organisations.
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              Safeguarding the child athlete in sport: a review, a framework and recommendations for the IOC youth athlete development model

              Participation in sport has many physical, psychological and social benefits for the child athlete. A growing body of evidence indicates, however, that sport participation may have inherent threats for the child’s well-being. The subject of safeguarding children in sport has seen an increase in scientific study in recent years. In particular, there is increasing emphasis on identifying who is involved in abuse, the context of where it occurs and the identification of the various forms of abuse that take place in the sporting domain. Safeguarding principles developed by the International Safeguarding Children in Sport Founders Group are presented along with 8 underlying pillars which underpin the successful adoption and implementation of safeguarding strategies. This safeguarding model is designed to assist sport organisations in the creation of a safe sporting environment to ensure that the child athlete can flourish and reach their athletic potential through an enjoyable experience. The aim of this narrative review is to (1) present a summary of the scientific literature on the threats to children in sport; (2) introduce a framework to categorise these threats; (3) identify research gaps in the field and (4) provide safeguarding recommendations for sport organisations.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Front Sports Act Living
                Front Sports Act Living
                Front. Sports Act. Living
                Frontiers in Sports and Active Living
                Frontiers Media S.A.
                2624-9367
                08 June 2021
                2021
                : 3
                : 630071
                Affiliations
                Safe Sport Lab, Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto , Toronto, ON, Canada
                Author notes

                Edited by: Mike Hartill, Edge Hill University, United Kingdom

                Reviewed by: Flávio De Souza Castro, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil; Fábio Juner Lanferdini, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil

                *Correspondence: Joseph John Gurgis joseph.gurgis@ 123456mail.utoronto.ca

                This article was submitted to Elite Sports and Performance Enhancement, a section of the journal Frontiers in Sports and Active Living

                Article
                10.3389/fspor.2021.630071
                8217753
                34169275
                2b8665e7-361f-4a6f-9330-4cbd1d4cbff9
                Copyright © 2021 Gurgis and Kerr.

                This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

                History
                : 16 November 2020
                : 21 April 2021
                Page count
                Figures: 2, Tables: 0, Equations: 0, References: 41, Pages: 14, Words: 11140
                Categories
                Sports and Active Living
                Original Research

                safe sport,safeguarding sport,sport administrators,education,policy,research,monitoring,complaint mechanisms

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