The latest episode of our podcast On Side looks at the issue of safeguarding participants of sport. It discusses the findings of the Australian Child Maltreatment Study and what it means for sport, and the work done as a result of Sport Integrity Australia’s review of the Western Australian Institute of Sport’s Women’s Artistic Gymnastics Program.

The interview features:

Professor Daryl Higgins Director, Institute of Child Protection Studies, Australian Catholic University

Kait McNamara Director, Child Safeguarding, Department of Local Sport and Cultural Industries (Western Australia)

Emma Gardner A/g Director Safeguarding, Sport Integrity Australia.

Professor Higgins revealed the findings of the Australian Child Maltreatment Study which showed 62% of Australians had experienced 1 or more types of maltreatment.

Concerningly, maltreatment is chronic, not isolated, according to the study, with 2 in 5 experiencing maltreatment.

“We're just scratching the surface,” he said.  “We know that many forms of abuse and neglect are more prevalent for women compared to men and … looked at changes over time, gender differences, age cohort differences and that's really the power of a study as comprehensive as ours is.”

He said the response to the study was positive.

“We're already seeing that in terms of different sectors saying how valuable the data is to them, both in terms of prevention, knowing how extensive it is and therefore what are some of the drivers that we need to be addressing in our community, but also in terms of responses.

“We know now that one of the really significant drivers of the scourge that we have in Australia of mental ill health is childhood experiences of abuse and neglect.”

McNamara said the findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse showed there was no type of institution that escaped this type of abuse and harm of children.

However, that the response from sport is crucial.

“It’s crucial for them being just aware of who can support them if something does happen at their club, who do they need to contact in the police, who do they need to contact … So I think it's around not putting our heads in the sand and making sure we just accept the fact these things could happen.

“We prevent them where we can, but if they do occur, how do we support that young person in a very, very critical moment because that can really shape how they then move forward from their journey.”

The key risk areas identified by the Royal Commission – such as transporting children and overnight stays – are still the same key increased risk areas that Sport Integrity Australia was seeing, according to Gardner, from Sport Integrity Australia.

“Overwhelmingly the largest proportion of complaints [Sport Integrity Australia receives] involve children,” she said.

Those complaints snowballed after the release of the documentary Athlete A, but “gymnastics is not an island”, she said.