»Safe Clubs«: Development and evaluation of empowering workshops to prevent interpersonal and sexual violence in sport clubs

In recent years, an increasing number of studies have investigated the prevalence of interpersonal violence in sport in diverse countries. The results of the German study “Safe in Sport” (Rulofs et al., 2022) show that 70% of 4,367 athletes have experienced interpersonal violence in sport at least once in their lives. Particularly, the sport club is the most often indicated context for experiencing violence. Previous projects (Allroggen et al., 2016; Rulofs et al., 2022) provided theoretical evidence that creating a culture of awareness in sport clubs and empowering athletes can help protect athletes from violence. According to Wolff (2015), an organizational culture change can only unfold if several levels and actors of an organization are involved. The present project »Safe Clubs« addresses these findings and is divided into five subprojects that cover the domains of analysis, prevention, and intervention regarding child and youth protection. Two subprojects aim to holistically improve the domain “prevention” of interpersonal violence in sport clubs by implementing a culture of awareness and empowering athletes through interventions with all stakeholders in sport clubs. One workshop targets adults in the club (e.g. board members, parents, coaches or physiotherapists) and focuses on knowledge transfer, bystander interventions and a joint establishment of a culture of awareness. Workshops for coaches and athletes aim to empower athletes. In order to support a cultural change, the workshops and sport psychological counselling for coaches focus on implementing an empowering motivational climate. These interventions address a behavior change towards more empowering strategies as these can serve as a protective factor against interpersonal violence (Ohlert et al., 2022). Finally, empowering workshops for athletes intend to provide opportunities to explore, strengthen as well as communicate own boundaries and where to seek support if suspicious situations are observed or experienced. All target (and control) groups complete questionnaires that measure the achievement of workshop-specific goals as well as subjective perception of their club’s culture of awareness. (Multivariate) analyses of variance and correlation analyses are performed to analyze the data. Implications of the results for the prevention of interpersonal violence in sport clubs will be presented and discussed.