Why Child Sexual Abuse in Sport Isn’t Just a “Bad Actor” Problem. It’s Also a Systems Failure.

For years, research on child sexual abuse (CSA) in youth sports has focused on individuals, primarily the behaviors of perpetrators and the vulnerability of victims. But new findings from the June 2025 study, “Applying a systems thinking lens to child sexual abuse in sport: an analysis of investigative report findings and recommendations,” suggest that many organizations are missing an opportunity to also use a wider lens when engaging in prevention-focused thinking.

Researchers Karl Dodd, Paul M. Salmon, Colin Solomon, and Scott McLean used AcciMap, a systems-based tool often used to investigate complex safety incidents, to examine CSA investigations in five major Australian sporting settings. Their research (full study available here) found that the enabling factors of CSA in sport are more commonly rooted in high-level systemic issues such as governance, leadership, policy, and organizational culture. This contrasts sharply with most peer-reviewed literature, which tends to concentrate on individual-level causes, actors, and decisions.

This gap between research methods and what’s happening in real-time investigations reveals something important: practitioners and investigators may be ahead of academics when it comes to applying systems thinking to CSA prevention. Why is this the case? Investigators and those on the front lines of youth-serving work often have direct and immediate access to stakeholders and organizational structures, plus a more detailed understanding of the in-the-moment nuances of relationships and organizational culture, while researchers may be more limited in their access as third-party observers, and cannot react to events and changes in real time.

The results also show that common enabling factors of CSA span across sports, levels of play, and gender. This suggests that many of the same systemic breakdowns are repeating everywhere. Factors like weak governance, poor reporting mechanisms, limited oversight, and toxic organizational culture continue to surface across environments, regardless of the sport or competition level.

Even more concerning is the lack of vertical integration in sport systems. This means that what’s known at the frontline — by athletes, parents, or coaches — often doesn’t make its way to decision-makers at higher levels. In some cases, athletes don’t even recognize abuse as abuse when it happens, and those in power never hear about it. This critical feedback loop is broken, which allows abuse to continue unseen and unaddressed.

Another issue the researchers describe is “migration”– the way standards and safety practices degrade over time due to stressors like funding cuts or performance pressure. We often refer to this phenomenon as a form of drift. Even well-meaning organizations with appropriate policies in place can slide into unsafe territory without realizing it.

Approaching this Challenge Using Praesidium’s Safety Equation

Praesidium’s Safety Equation outlines eight key operational elements that must be addressed and working in concert to reduce the risk of abuse. This new study confirms the underlying assumption of the Safety Equation — that CSA prevention is not a matter of one or two interventions. It requires reinforcing safety across the entire system and organizational culture.

1. Policies
   Weak or inconsistent policy frameworks at the governance level allow for confusion, loopholes, and a lack of accountability. When there is no standard for responding to incidents or implementing safeguards, frontline efforts often collapse under the weight of unclear expectations.
2. Screening & Selection
   Systemic failures in how individuals are vetted, such as inconsistent background checks or lack of role-specific screening, can leave organizations vulnerable. Prevention begins with ensuring the right people are brought into youth-serving environments.
3. Training
   The study highlights gaps in stakeholder knowledge and awareness, especially among athletes and parents. Consistent and comprehensive training is essential to recognizing, preventing, and responding to CSA. This training must extend across staff and volunteers across all levels of the organization, as well as your broader community.
4. Monitoring & Supervision
   Without active oversight, abusive behavior can go undetected. Weak monitoring practices and limited supervision create opportunities for harm, particularly in high-trust, low-visibility environments like locker rooms or travel settings. Remember: when we consider the importance of supervision in abuse prevention, we are talking about supervision at all levels – supervision practices for those in your program or care, as well as appropriate supervision of staff and volunteers.
5. Internal Feedback Systems
   A key insight from the study was the failure of vertical integration. Internal feedback systems are crucial for identifying patterns, escalating concerns, and correcting course. All staff, volunteers, participants, and their families/guardians should be aware of what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior, and where and how to report a concern.
6. Consumer Participation
   When athletes and families don’t know what constitutes abuse or how to report it, unsafe conditions persist. Empowering youth and parents/guardians to recognize any inappropriate behavior or red flags and speak up is a foundational part of any effective prevention strategy.
7. Responding
   The analysis revealed failures in how organizations respond to reports, including delays, discrediting, or dismissiveness. An effective response protocol ensures that concerns are taken seriously and acted on swiftly, restoring safety and trust.
8. Administrative Practices
   This element connects back to leadership and organizational culture. Administrative decisions, from how resources are allocated to how volunteers are supported, create the conditions that either strengthen or erode safeguarding efforts – allowing for or preventing operational drift.

The Bottom Line

This powerful and informative new study reinforces Praesidium’s long-held Safety Equation model:  CSA prevention requires coordinated effort across an entire system, not piecemeal tactics focused only on individuals or on siloed operational elements.

By applying the Safety Equation and targeting high-leverage points like governance, culture, and communication, sport organizations can create the systems and culture needed to prevent abuse.