Policy Priorities to Protect Athlete Survivors | The Athlete Survivors’ Assist

Our Priorities

Ending Abuse in Sports

The Assist advocates for survivor-centered policies to prevent sexual violence in sports, ensure accountability, and drive institutional and national reforms that protect athletes.

There remains the necessity to shift toward a comprehensive change in sports with athlete- and survivor-centered, trauma-informed solutions. Preventing and addressing sexual violence in connection to educational systems and student-athletes requires institutional and national policy change. Through its advocacy work, The Assist hopes to address the deficiencies in our current system and the ways in which it fails athletes.

The policy priorities of The Assist are:

Preventing Sexual Violence, Including Education and Culture Change

Advocate for creating meaningful culture change to better protect young athletes by encouraging the adoption of model policies and best practices developed with input from athletes and survivors to address sexual assault and abuse in sports in institutions that interact with athletes. These efforts should include trauma-informed and evidence-based approaches to prevention, education on reporting processes, athlete rights, and effective responses to incidents. Recognizing that many sports programs operate outside traditional school settings, prevention strategies should also involve outreach to parents, coaches, and other key stakeholders. One example is Compassionate Coach®, an educational training course piloted and administered by The Assist.
Increased investment in prevention initiatives is essential, including programs that promote safe environments, support for those who intervene, and resources to assist individuals who may need care and services.

Intervention, Healing, and Service

Invest in survivor-centered and trauma-informed services so survivors can engage in processes that help them heal, which can include evidence-informed or evidence-based counseling and mental health services to process trauma.
Support the passage of an Athlete Survivor Bill of Rights.
Community, Institutional, and System-Based Accountability

Community, Institutional, and System-Based Accountability

Improving the US Center for Safe Sport through reforms to create transparency around the Center’s process and the system of prevention and accountability.
Strengthening reporting procedures and the governance structure of sports systems.
Improve international mechanisms of reporting and accountability for those who cause harm and systems that allow abuse to continue.

Criminal responses

Ensure that people who cause harm and institutions that enable abuse are held responsible and provide criminal legal and civil systems remedies for survivors.
Support survivor empowerment legislation such as statutes of limitation reform and expanded victims’ rights legislation.

International Policy

Reflect the same policy principles for change with international sports organizations and governments so there is more transparency, better alternatives, and protections for athletes from abuse and retaliation that include survivor voices in policymaking.
Support the broader Brave Movement to end childhood sexual violence that includes a focus on creating a safe and secure internet for all children and adolescents

Led by and informed by survivors’ experiences, The Assist is thoughtful in its policy engagement and will only support policies that adhere to the following guiding principles: survivor and athlete-centered, research-based, and trauma-informed.

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Your donation supports survivors, funds sexual abuse prevention education, and helps make sport safer for all athletes.

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Our Policy Agenda