Part 1: Preface

In Part 1, Julie Stevens, PhD, Professor of Sport Management at Brock University, briefly frames the Safe Sport 2nd Edition within current academic, professional and community contexts. She builds upon the notion of the “Empty Chair” to explain the importance of implementing an athlete-centred perspective when generating safe sport awareness and creating safe sport educational resources. She then addresses the challenge of implementing new ‘safe sport’ initiatives by drawing upon a “Model for Understanding Organizational Change” that includes context and intra-dynamics that influence how change happens in an organization.

Stevens notes the expansive variety of contributions in this revision, and how each author offers insight about ways we can implement the radical organizational and systemic change needed for effective safe sport structures, practices, and values, not only within Canadian sport but within sport systems throughout the world.