The Safe Sport Allies bystander training: developing a multi-layered program for youth sport participants and their coaches to prevent harassment and abuse in local sport clubs.

Harassment and abuse represent a pervasive and critical problem in sport with far-reaching consequences. Survivors' testimonials underscore the profound and enduring impact of these experiences at individual, interpersonal, organizational and community level. Many of their stories reveal painful inaction from responsible adults in the sport organization, aggravating the harm. Other contributing factors to the harm inflicted include a culture of silence, lack of knowledge and understanding of what constitutes abuse, unawareness of reporting and supporting mechanisms, and fear of potential consequences. While effective bystander interventions have been developed outside the sport context, particularly targeting students in higher education, such initiatives have yet to be extensively adapted and assessed within the sport context. To address this gap, the Safe Sport Allies Erasmus+ collaborative partnership relied on the intervention mapping approach as a guiding framework to systematically develop a bystander training program (i.e., Safe Sport Allies) to train youth sport participants and youth sport coaches to act as effective bystanders. The current paper describes the comprehensive development process and provides an overview of implementation and evaluation possibilities. Throughout the paper, it is explained how each step of the Intervention Mapping approach shaped the Safe Sport Allies bystander training program. The program development, and the developed plans for implementation and evaluation are presented, shedding light on challenges encountered. The bystander training program developed in this paper and the implementation and evaluation plans can serve as an outline to build future interventions within this critical domain of safeguarding in sport.

Preventing sexual violence in sport: Determinants of positive coach-bystander behavior.

Given their central role and position, coaches are instrumental in creating safe sport environments, especially in preventing sexual violence, but little is known about bystander behaviors, hampering the development of effective bystander programs in the context of sport. To identify determining characteristics of bystander behavior, 1,442 Belgian youth sport coaches completed an online questionnaire on bystander-related attitudes, norms, autonomy beliefs, and self-efficacy using two hypothetical scenarios of sexual violence in the sports club. Data were analyzed using confidence interval-based estimation of relevance (CIBER). A total of 127 coaches had witnessed sexual violence over the past year, most but not all intervened. Experiential attitude expectation, instrumental attitude evaluation, perceived referent behavior and approval, and subskill presence were positively associated with coaches' intention to intervene. Of the determinants of positive coach-bystander behavior, attitude and perceived norms proved key constituents for programs addressing sexual violence in youth sport. We conclude that interventions aiming at increasing positive affective consequences, reinforcing the sense of group membership, and strengthening the social norm of intervening in case of signs of sexual violence may be most influential to stimulate positive coach-bystander behavior.

Static and Dynamic Recidivism Risk Factors of People Who Have Committed Child Sex Offenses in Sport.

Current knowledge of people who commit child sex offenses (PCSO) in sport contexts is based on descriptive information from cross-sectional self-report studies of survivors and media coverage of court cases. In-depth scientific analyses of characteristics, interpersonal dynamics, and applied theories of sexual offending in sport are largely absent. This paper starts with a description of available Belgian data on PCSO in sport, coming from self-reports in community samples, reported cases in the media, and interviews with survivors. The main goal of this study is the analysis of treatment file information from 16 convicted PCSO in sport using two actuarial recidivism assessment instruments (STATIC-99R and STABLE-2007). Overall, the majority of the included PCSO's risk assessments indicated relatively low risk of sexual recidivism. Notable was the preponderance of high risk scores on items related to exclusively unrelated victims, male victims, sexual deviance, and the absence of an intimate relationship. Other static and dynamic factors related to the risk of sexual recidivism, e.g., (prior) non-sexual violent offenses, unknown victims, hostility toward women, lack of concern for others, and poor cooperation with supervisors were rated relatively low in this sample of PCSO in sport. The findings point toward the complex and nuanced patterns that underlie child sexual abuse in sport. The current findings bring us one step closer to filling in the puzzle of child sexual abuse in sport and will help inform evidence- and experience-based prevention and intervention efforts.