Bullying

Bullying is unwelcome or aggressive behavior that involves a real or perceived power imbalance and can take many forms including physical, verbal, emotional or other types of intimidating or humiliating behavior's. The behavior is often repeated and can occur on or away from the playing field, court or arena.
viaSport conducted a survey among its provincial sport organizations to understand the perceived magnitude of this issue in B.C.’s amateur sport system. Among those organizations responding to the survey, the results were as follows:

• 94% believe sport bullying is a serious problem that needs to be addressed

• 55% know of athletes who have dropped out of sport because of bullying

• 44% know of officials, coaches, managers, board members and other volunteers who left a sport due to bullying

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Everyone engaged in sport in B.C. is entitled to a safe sport environment where bullying is not tolerated. viaSport and our partners are committed to ensuring that participants at every level of sport are aware that bullying of any form will not be condoned.
On behalf of more than 70 provincial sport organizations, and the 670,000 members these organizations represent, viaSport is determined to foster a quality sport culture for all British Columbians.  viaSport is taking the following steps to address sport bullying in B.C.:

• Spearheaded a public awareness campaign, entitled #ERASEbullying, to bring attention to the issue

• Consulted a focus group of provincial and multi-sport representatives to develop a provincial Declaration of Commitment for sport sector leaders to commit to erase bullying in sport

• Conducted an environmental scan of current best practices in harassment policies and training programs as a tool for prevention

• Providing support to sport organizations to effectively resolve issues that arise

• Providing education to the sector on risk management, risk reduction and good governance.

• Promoting the Responsible Coaching Movement and the idea of ethics training for all coaches