Invitation – Call for Evidence and Insight Advancing knowledge on child sexual and emotional abuse in elite sport
We would like to invite your participation in a project to help prevent child sexual and emotional abuse for children and adolescents in elite sport.
Background
Millions of children and young people take part in sporting activities every day across the world. For some children this is purely for recreation and fun. Some of these children will go on to perform at the elite level. Recent high profile cases and a growing body of research evidence demonstrates that elite sport can be a context in which children experience sexual and emotional abuse.
Objective
Safe Sport International (SSI) has been commissioned by Oak Foundation to conduct a status quo report Identify key researchers, possible intersections and make recommendations for the future. Our specific objective is to scan and summarise findings from multiple fields to prevent child sexual and emotional abuse for children and adolescents in elite sport.
Consultation
We are engaging with a wide range of stakeholders to inform this project. This includes:
● Athletes, including people with lived experience of abuse
● Researchers, including those working in child safeguarding, sport performance, child wellbeing, organisational behaviour theory, offender studies
● Practitioners who work in child safeguarding roles in elite sport and other fields
● Decision makers working in elite sport
● Representatives of advocacy, human rights and survivors’ (experts with lived experience of abuse) groups
Task
● We are seeking your perspective on 4 key topics:
● What recommendations would you make to prevent sexual and emotional abuse in elite sport?
● How can we impact future practice?
● Who are the experts in this field?
● What are the different perspectives which are relevant in this field?
● Any other comments you would like to add.
We very much appreciate your help.
Online Consultation
This is a ‘live’ document to which everyone is contributing. Please add your comments to any of the following 5 topics:
1.What recommendations would you make to prevent sexual and emotional abuse in elite sport? (e.g. what further research, education, legal, policy changes or practice changes are required?)
2.How can we impact future practice? Who are the key influencers in this field ,what would facilitate change and how could this be done? Please provide contact details if possible.
3.Who are the experts in the field? Here can you identify people who are likely to move their organizations forward?This would include, for example, those in safeguarding positions but also those key supporters,advocates, policy makers and decision-makers who can support and drive change in child protection and safeguarding.We particularly encourage you to highlight people working in the Global South as well as work which has investigated the impact of characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity, culture or disability.
4.What are the different perspectives which are relevant in this field? (e.g. feminist, human rights, child rights).
Any other comments you would like to add.
For athletes including people with lived experience of abuse, we also ask if you would be prepared to participate in a focus group which will be held 1st December to comment on the recommendations made in the survey by all groups. Please indicate if you would be happy to be contacted about this.
