Empowering and Safeguarding Girls in Sport: Girls Positive and Safe Coaching Pathway Workshops
Today marks Safe Sport Day, a day to reflect on our commitment to fostering a safer sporting environment, free from all forms of harm and abuse for everyone. It's also a time to showcase our recent efforts in breaking down barriers that hinder girls' and women's participation in sport, which often result in the failure to recruit and retain more females at all levels of sports. Under the ‘Girls Positive and Safe Coaching Pathway’ initiative, led by TAFISA and Nike, our Social Impact Manager, Julia Tappendorf, and TT4ALL Coordinator, Mayssa Bsaibes, recently conducted two unique workshops on creating a more equal and welcoming sporting experience for girls and women who often feel neglected or unsafe in physical activities and sport contexts.
These Girls Positive and Safe Coaching Pathway workshops emphasised the importance of recognising and coaching girls, women, and those who identify as female, just as coaches should do for all athletes. Training approaches should not differ based on gender identity or background. By addressing gender inequity in sports, promoting safe practices, and fostering inclusive coaching mindsets, these workshops covered a range of in-depth topics and were actively attended by 30 enthusiastic World Table Tennis Day Promoters. These participants, who are not only female but also of different gender identities, are committed to improving the status quo and driving change in their local communities worldwide.
Workshop 1: Empowering Girls and Women in Sport
Held on 6 July, the first workshop began with an introduction to the core concepts and objectives of the Girls Positive and Safe Coaching Pathway projects. It further unfolded the issues that hinder the participation of girls and women in sports, such as high dropout rates, social and cultural body image pressures, and gender stereotypes.
Participants were introduced to a range of toolkits and guides designed to tackle these issues, including the Made to Play Coaching Girls Guide, Coaching Her programme, Body Confidence in Sport programme, and TAFISA’s Safeguarding Guidelines. The second workshop provided a deeper exploration of the latter two resources. Additionally, a breakout session allowed participants to interactively discuss potential solutions for real-life scenarios they might encounter while coaching girls, helping them to reflect, exchange experiences and ideas, and come up with better ways to improve their coaching methods.
Workshop 2: Enhancing Safeguarding in Sport
The second workshop, held on 16 July, focused on improving the safety of the sporting environment for girls and women. With the objective of promoting good practices of safeguarding in the implementation of sport activities, it led participants to delve deeper into various topics covered in the Safeguarding module, including abuse and harm, recognition, responding and reporting concerns, menstrual health, and combating hate speech in sport, and the Body Confidence module.
The workshop also featured breakout sessions, practical examples, interactive exercises, comprehensive guidelines, and online Q&A segments to emphasise the importance of safeguarding and gather participants' perspectives. Attendees gained valuable insights into current issues and concerns and received practical tips for organising sports initiatives and events that are more secure, inclusive, and engaging for individuals of all gender identities.
As this series of workshops has come to an end for the first group, we want to extend our thanks to TAFISA and Nike for their meaningful initiative and to our workshop participants who expressed their appreciation for the learning and practical tools they acquired to enhance their coaching practices and safeguard underrepresented and marginalised people in sport. As we continue to promote safety and inclusivity in sport environments, these workshops are just the beginning – especially as we will conduct those workshops for further groups of our stakeholders. Together, we remain committed to empowering girls and women in sport, ensuring everyone feels safe, respected, and supported at all levels.