About this Research Topic

Background

The issue of welfare in sport has become paramount in recent years. This has led various individuals who operate in sport (e.g. the media, professional bodies and researchers) to consider aspects such as safeguarding, clean sport, overtraining, and the wider ethics surrounding the duty of care of those involved in sport. Focusing greater attention on understanding these aspects is critical given the potentially deleterious effects these aspects may have on the well-being and mental health of individuals who are subjected to wrongdoing in sport. Furthermore, by focusing on safeguarding, clean sport, overtraining, and the wider ethics surrounding the duty of care and addressing wrongdoing, it provides a critical opportunity to improve cultures in sport and make this a more prosocial environment for all involved.

Given the need to promote a prosocial environment in sport, as well as the need to address wrongdoing in this context, it is unsurprising that some researchers, professional bodies and sport organizations have tasked themselves with the protection of individuals in this context. To date, work has been undertaken to explore how issues concerning the welfare of individuals are understood, to consider the impact of the sporting culture on the protection or otherwise of individuals operating in sport and to develop potential interventions which may protect those involved in this context. Numerous positive advances have been made to understand and improve the welfare and well-being of those involved in sport, as well as to raise awareness and education at the micro (e.g., peer-to-peer), meso (e.g., coach-athlete, coach-parent, parent-athlete), exo- (e.g., professional leagues, national governing bodies), and macro-system (e.g., media and societal views) levels. Despite this, these advances have not necessarily been well communicated between system levels or across international perspectives. Continued efforts are therefore needed to disseminate research findings, policy and practice developments in this area. Therefore, the goal of this research topic is to bring together a collection of papers that are concerned with protecting the welfare of individuals who may operate at varying system levels within organized sport.

In this Research Topic we invite submissions which:
1) present original research studies in relation to safeguarding, welfare, the duty of care and the protection of various individuals who operate in organized sport (e.g., athletes [under and over-18 years of age], coaches, parents, sport officials/referees)
2) outline applied (i.e., reflective) practice (i.e., case study) articles in which the delivery of safeguarding and welfare program delivery is evaluated
3) describe and evaluate research intervention programs. This could comprise pre-intervention participatory/co-design methods, and/or quantitative and/or qualitative evaluations of program effectiveness
4) narrative or systematic reviews that appraise and evaluate the research evidence pertaining to the scope of this special topic issue
5) national governing body/Olympic Committee position statements or short communications that provide national or international position on policy in relation to the special topic issue.

Keywords: safeguarding, welfare, duty of care, well-being, mental health

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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