What is safe sport? While I was attending the Alberta Sport Leadership Conference in Enoch, Alta., the topic of safe sport came up many times throughout the weekend.
The Minister of Science and Sport, Kirsty Duncan, announced funding in March to launch two initiatives to be carried out by the Sport Dispute Resolution Centre of Canada: an investigation unit and a national toll-free confidential helpline for harassment, abuse and discrimination.
The following month the Government of Canada endorsed, along with provincial and territorial governments, the Red Deer Declaration for the Prevention of Harassment, Abuse and Discrimination in sport.
The latest step in this movement was the National Safe Sport Summit that occurred in Ottawa at the beginning of May where Duncan addressed more than 170 sport leaders in the capital to combat abuse and discrimination in sport.
Why the urgency? What is happening in our Canadian sport system that is bringing together some of the most powerful decision makers in sport in our country? A study just released by AthletesCAN and the University of Toronto blew open the doors on that question. In the study more than 1,000 high performance Canadian athletes indicated that they had been maltreated in sport.
Most of the past news stories have been focused on experiences of sexual abuse, but in addition to this, the findings found that athletes experience far greater psychological abuse and neglect in comparison. In a public release by AthetesCAN on their reaction to the results of the study, Erin Willson – who is on the Olympic synchronized swimming team – made an important statement that this study only dealt with the high performance athletes in Canada.
How many athletes at a grassroots level are experiencing the same type of abusive experiences, some of whom may not even be involved in sport anymore because of it? The question now is what can we do to make sure that our athletes involved in sport don’t have to become a part of these statistics. How can we make sport safe?
In the next few months you will see many of the National Sport Organizations in Canada start to communicate with their provincial chapters on safe sport policy in Canada. This policy being developed is planning to hold NSOs accountable through access to funding. Another initiative tied in with the safe sport movement is the Responsible Coaching Movement led by the Coaching Association of Canada and the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports. I urge you to take a look at the Responsible Coaching Movement even before your local sport organization contacts you. They have information on coach.ca for parents, sport organizations and coaches. Let’s all do our part to keep sport safe.
Tara Chisholm is the head coach of the Canadian National Women’s Sledge Hockey Team and is a member of the Females in Action Moving and Empowering committee. She can be reached at tara@parasports.net.
