Exposing the ‘Olympic family’: a review of progress towards understanding risk factors for sexual victimisation in sport

Sport organisations, including the Olympic movement, frequently invoke the concept of ‘family’ to describe their allegedly close and supportive social systems. However, the family metaphor backfires when sexual exploitation in sport is uncovered. Media coverage of high profile cases of sexual abuse against athletes by their coaches has prompted recent policy responses in the United Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands and Australia but, relative to clinical and therapeutic settings, academic research into sexual exploitation in sport is only in its infancy. This paper reviews the empirical and theoretical advances in sport-based sexual abuse research, contrasting these with ‘mainstream’ data and theories. It examines whether elite sport, as a surrogate family setting for the talented young athlete, might be a distinctive location for sexual exploitation

Healthy sport for healthy girls? The role of parents in preventing sexual abuse in sport.

Sexual abuse has only recently been recognised as a problem within sport (Brackenridge 1994) and, as yet, little is known about the contexts in which girls might be at greater or lesser risk of experiencing such crimes. This papers explores the assumptions which parents make about their daughters’ health and safety in the sports coaching context in relation to Hellestedt’s (1987) Parentlal Involvement Continuum. Data from a study of 93 sets of parents of elite young sportswomen are presented which show what much mothers and fathers know about their daughters’ coaching setting. The results are used to evaluate the extent to which parents’ assumptions about sport as a healthy place for healthy girls are warranted. Research on sexual abuse prevention in day care settings (Finkelhor & Williams 1988) is explored as a possible template for parents who wish to contribute to the prevention of sexual abuse of girls in sport

Children or athletes? Best practice for safeguarding elite young athletes

This address explores the status confusion between “child” and “athlete” that arises in elite sport for young people and discuss some of the challenges that this presents to sport providers. It reviews the evidence about breaches of child welfare in sport around the world and considers how the sport community can respond positively to this evidence in both policy and practice

International experience counts

Through a semi-biographical account, this paper addresses the links between the speaker's career and internationalism

Managing myself: investigator survival in sensitive research

Thirteen years of investigative research into sexual abuse in sport provides the basis for this paper, in which reflections are offered about the role and survival of the investigator in sensitive research. The ethical ground rules, research methods and working practices adopted during this research have all been influenced by processes well beyond conventional social science. The paper interrogates three meanings of ‘managing myself’ as a lesbian engaged in a gendered research process: first, managing myself, coping with the strains and stresses of the research; secondly, managing (by) myself as being alone in the research; and thirdly, managing my ‘self/selves’, deciding which of several possible selves or agendas - the personal, the scientific or the political – is being addressed at any given time. The paper ends by considering how to maintain focus in the face of internal doubts and external pressures

Sex offending in sports: A whole new ball game?

The purpose of my address today is to tell you a little about the policy and prevention work that has developed in the UK in recent years and to explore some of the possible benefits that can be shared between the sport and treatment communities as a result of sex offending research and analysis in sports. Questions of interest today include: Why has sex offending in sports only just arrived on the policy agenda? What, if anything, does research in sports have to offer those of you working in ‘mainstream’ research and treatment work? Are offences in sports characterized by exactly the same dynamics as those in any other settings or is sex offending in sports really a whole new ball game? And what is being done, and can be done, to bring sport organizations and programs into the treatment and prevention fold

Bringing about cultural change: Addressing sexual harassment and abuse in sport

This paper describes how change was achieved in the attitudes towards child abuse in sport and presents a method for monitoring cultural change in an organisation

Children's rights in football: Welfare and work

This paper examines issues of labour and play in children's football. It asks whether global capitalism and the growth of girls' and women's football might lead to greater sexual victimization among female players

The Parents’ Optimum Zone: Measuring and optimising parental engagement in youth sport

Both Sport England, through its Long Term Athlete Development programme, and the NSPCC, through its Child Protection in Sport Unit, have a stake in improving parental behaviour in youth sport in order to optimise the safety and performance potential of young athletes. This paper reports on a commissioned review of parenting research literature and programmes by these two agencies in 2005. The outcome is a new model of parenting termed POZ (Parental Optimum Zone) that draws from previous research, in particular that on Activation States (Brackenridge et al., 2005) and Hanin’s (1995) notion of the Individual Zone of Optimum Function (or IZOF) for athletes. The model seeks to identify the optimum discourses, knowledge, feelings and behaviours that parents should demonstrate in their engagement in their child’s sport. Adopting this framework, and listening to children’s views of it, will allow us to describe when parents are ‘in the zone’ and help them to adopt POZitive voices, knowledge, attitudes and action towards their child’s sport. POZ synthesis several previous models and offers both a method of diagnosing and monitoring parent behaviour and a platform for parent education

Violence and abuse prevention in sport

This chapter sets out a general framework for understanding the nature of abusive violations in sport and situates these within the wider policy landscape of sport. It reviews some of the main research questions facing those who wish to eradicate child abuse in sport, and sexual violations in particular, and weighs the evidence about these from research studies