Forsyth to speak on safe sport

By Lethbridge Herald on April 24, 2024.

By Justin Seward

Lethbridge Herald

Lethbridge Sport Council will conclude their seven-part  ‘Sport for All’: Breaking Barrier series by welcoming Generation Safe Founder and former Olympian, Allison Forsyth, to host a safe sport workshop on Saturday.

The workshop includes education and will offer up what options are available to organizations in regards to safe sport.

Forsyth will be there to facilitate, consult  and support those sport organizations who are either working through  or are in the beginning stages of their work in Safe Sport during the session.

“We’ve had a number of organizations over the years reach out to ask how we could support our local community in safe guarding our children, as well as just other inclusive type of topics,” said Susan Eymann, LSC executive director.

“And so for Allison to be able to make the trip out from Ontario is very exciting.”

Her background includes being a  certified education provider for Safe Sport in Canada and

brings a wealth of knowledge through  leadership in ground-breaking education as well as awareness in the Canadian safe sport landscape.  

The two-time Olympian and eight-time national champion in alpine skiing offers multiple  perspectives about what it was like being a sexual abuse survivor in sport.

“She speaks with much respect around the challenges that the volunteers in sport have,” said Eymann.

“But she’s very blunt in her approach of helping us become more aware and educated on the topic … I think it’s taken her a long time to understand what fully happened to her in that whole process.”

LSC would ultimately like to see many sports organizations in attendance.

“It has been very challenging to get them away from their regular scheduled programming of sport and working with their organization to be able to take the time to attend this session,” said Eymann.

“Which is part of why we’ve opened it up to have it so there are two options.”

Participants will have the option to attend or the whole day and have one-on-one with Forsyth to figure out what the next steps are for their organization.

People can also just attend the first hour to listen in on a talk by Forsyth.

The event goes from  10 a.m.- 3p.m. on Saturday at the Rocky Mountain Turf Club.

Registration can be done through www. lethbridgesportcouncil.ca/programs/sport-for-all and admission is free.