Sport needs to be a safe and enjoyable experience for everyone and providing this is a common task, shared by sports and other organisations, staff, athletes, parents, volunteers, and many others. We are proud to be partnering in the Halting Harassment and Abuse in Sports using Learning Technologies (HALT) project, which aims to raise awareness, educate and connect people in reaching the same goal.

Following the research and development phases, four main outputs have been developed, namely the Virtual Community of Practice, Serious Game, Whistle-blowing service, and a movie. As we are still in the process of evaluating the material, we invite you to register for free, and provide your valuable feedback!



The HALT Virtual Community of Practice is open to everyone who is interested in the topic of preventing abuse and harassment in sport. We especially welcome active members who are willing to contribute and share their experiences and resources - the practitioners and experts, but also the end users - athletes, coaches, parents and others engaged in sport. By sharing the knowledge and good practice, we can learn through both instruction-based learning and group discourse, and work towards a safer and more enjoyable sport for everyone.



The Serious Game with role-play capabilities has been developed using realistic scenarios in order to engage users, mainly young athletes, in critical situations which will help them to be aware towards harassment and abuse in sport. There are four different scenarios taking place in different sports. Each scenario describes a unique story where the user has to rate certain behaviours and make the appropriate choices, in order to succeed and score as many points as possible. Finally there is also a fifth scenario which is a quiz to assess what the users have learned by playing the rest of the scenarios.



Whistle-blowing service set up so users may anonymously report danger, risk, malpractice or wrongdoing in sports, which affects themselves or others. The interactive map provides an overview of the incidents reported, revealing and raising concerns over harassment and abuse within the context of sports. Any adult or young person with concerns about a colleague, fellow athlete or themselves being at a risk can use the whistle-blowing service to make a report, and users will be also directed to services in their country should they wish to talk with professionals about their experiences.



The project partners also created a general video introducing the subject of harassment and abuse in sport, as well as introducing a wider video repository. Through the testimonials and interviews we hope to mobilize and sensitize the public about these topics, as well as to support the whistleblowing of harassment and abuse in sports.



In general, the HALT project is focused on raising awareness about best practices for preventing harassment and abuse in sports under the specific topic of combatting violence and tackle racism, discrimination and intolerance in sport. The learning technologies were developed by academics (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the European University Cyprus) to address this goal in a network of athletes, supported by sports organisations (Salzburg Sports Association, Hellenic Gymnastics Federation and the EUSA Institute) and athletes associations (Portuguese Union of Professional Football Players, Spanish Women Futsal Players Association).



Project partners met for an online meeting on July 15, catching up on the events and activities carried out in the past period, and planning next steps until the end of the year. If the circumstances allow, a live meeting in December will be used to evaluate this 3-year project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ Program of the European Union.

For more information, please see the official website http://halt.phed.auth.gr, register for the Virtual Community of Practice and feel free to provide us with feedback through that tool!