Project

Adapting and evaluating the Safe Sport Allies intervention program to foster positive bystander behaviors in the elite youth football context in Belgium

Code
365R09124
Duration
01 April 2024 → 31 March 2028
Funding
Funding by bilateral agreement (private and foundations)
Research disciplines
  • Medical and health sciences
    • Health promotion and policy
    • Preventive medicine
    • Sports sciences
Keywords
prevention interpersonal violence soccer
 
Project description

Elite Youth athletes are susceptible for harassment and abuse (or interpersonal violence). Therefore, researchers at Thomas More created the Safe Sport Allies (SSA) program to promote positive bystander behaviours as a powerful way to prevent interpersonal violence in sport. The program targets multiple social agents that may engage in positive bystander behaviours: parents, athletes, coaches and board members. In this project, we will adapt this programme to the Elite Belgian youth football context through action research. We aim to co-create and adapt the programme with the Belgian Elite football clubs (licensed by the Pro League). The action research will contain three major phases. For the first phase, the observation phase, we will build a relationship with two Pro League clubs who are willing to work with us. In the second phase, we will adapt the existing program through a co-creation and adaptation process characterized by an iterative process containing multiple cycles of action and reflection.Once we have adapted the program, the third phase will commence. This is the pilot phase were we implement the adapted intervention in the two clubs and make some final changes if necessary. In a second phase of the project, we will implement and evaluate the adapted intervention on a larger scale through a randomized controlled trial.