LET'S TEAM UP AND TALK

Session Resources

• Workbook
• How to Change the Game
• Session Recording

Diversity and Inclusion is an important topic area but it is complex and hard to navigate what to do and how to do it. This session will introduce some of the key terminology and some of the areas to pay attention to as you put together a thoughtful approach to move forward.

Panelists:

Andrea Carey - Andrea Carey is a Canadian Certified Inclusion Professional, holds a Masters of Education in Leadership Studies, is a Certified Executive Coach and is the Chief Inclusion Officer for INclusion INcorporated. Andrea has been working on diversity and inclusion projects at the local, provincial, national and international level for the past 15 years, leading the development of many leading resources, trainings and programs that were co-created with, and developed to support equity deserving groups. She spent ten years on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Paralympic Committee for ten years, and chaired the organization’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee and the Paralympic Pathways Committee.  Andrea is currently a Board Director with KidSport Victoria.

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Session Resources

• Workbook
• Session Recording

Gender identities is an area that has evolved rapidly over the past few years. Sports need to be thinking about how they can support all gender identities and create inclusive policies and supportive environments for each gender identity.

Panelists:

Ryan Gushulak (they/them) - Ryan comes to INclusion INcorporated holding a Master’s of Kinesiology, specializing in Health Promotion, and a Graduate Certificate in Sport and Recreation Management. Before working in sport Ryan’s research focused on working with members of marginalized communities.  Passionate about lifelong learning, Ryan is currently mulling the idea of beginning a PhD that would combine their interests of Safe Sport, coaching practices, and sport culture.

Ryan was born and raised in rural Manitoba. As a transmasculine, non-binary person they struggled to find belonging in their hometown but found solace in sport. That belonging in a sport environment has led them to a career in advocating for Safe Sporting environments for all athletes. This passion has led them to work in athlete services with Queen’s University Athletics Department, before joining Canada Artistic Swimming as the Safe Sport Manager. Ryan believes that Safe Sport and the principles of diversity, inclusion and equity are interconnected and work together to create positive experiences for athletes.

Ryan is excited to continue to dive deep into their own learning journey with the INclusion INcorporated team and explore how small daily changes can create more inclusive and psychologically safe environments.

Ness Murby (he/him) - Husband, father, Paralympian, and unapologetically trans. Ness Murby is a mental health practitioner, independent consultant, and the cofounder of TougherThan.”

Breaker of world records, bearer of much medal hardwares, and holder of world, continental, and national titles. Ness Murby is a dual national born in Melbourne (Australia) and a Canadian Paralympian currently residing in Vancouver BC.

Born with a rare congenital condition affecting his vision, Ness has represented three countries in three parasports. Australia, Japan, Canada; Goalball, Powerlifting, ParaAthletics. He immigrated to The Pacific Northwest in 2012 and has represented Canada since 2015. He’s a two-time ParaAthletics world medalist ranking WorldTop8 in f11 (blind) javelin, discus, and shotput. Discus is now his only event following the removal of his top event, Javelin, from the World ParaAthletics sports program.

In 2020 Ness came out publicly as transgender and in 2021 he changed his competitive designation to male. There has never been an openly transgender athlete at the Paralympic Games or World Championships. He is also the first Athletics Canada national team athlete openly out as trans.

Ness’ intersectionality has long lead him to push against prejudices and drive for systemic change. Cofounder of TougherThan and a proud collaborator with INclusion INcorporated, Ness advocates “there is enough room for all of us."

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Session Resources

• Session Recording

Financial barriers are a challenge to sport participation. Sport can be expensive and it is beyond the registration fees. This session will share some of the education, understanding and empathy needed in making sport welcoming and accessible to low-income families.

Panelists

Rebecca Foshole-Luke (she/her): Rebecca is a registered forensic social worker who is passionate about the intersection of social work and the law, and how to better serve Black, Indigenous, and racialized communities. She holds a B.A in Sociology and Women’s Studies, and a Bachelor of Social work degree. Her work is focused on dismantling the family regulation system or child welfare legal system. She is interested in exploring how human-centered and evidence-based approaches using an equity lens, can be used to transform the way programs and services are developed and delivered. She is passionate about using her lived experience, education, and skills to find ways to influence anti-racist and anti-oppressive organizational and policy changes. She hopes to continue to contribute to finding solutions that will allow individuals systematically excluded to truly thrive and have access to equitable resources and supports.

Session Resources:

• Session recording

Indigenous peoples have often not been included in sport. There is a parallel sport system that is Indigenous-led and is for Indigenous participants. Appreciating the Indigenous sport system and understanding how the two systems can work together will be the focus of this session.

Session Resources

• Session recording

• Anti-Racism in Sport module by the CAC: https://coach.ca/anti-racism-in-coaching

• https://antiracisminsport.ca/

• https://sirc.ca/anti-racism-resources/

• https://www.skysports.com/football/news/topic/7964/tackling-racism

As a society we are recognizing that racism is imbedded in our systems and structures. Racism is prevalent in sport and this session will talk about what that means and what you need to think about to surface this topic in your sport.

Register HERE

Panelists

Ruke Okome: My name is Ruke Okome and I am the Social Operations Manager for Free Play for kids. My deep appreciation for sports, community and overall belonging drives my passion in everything I do. I myself am an active individual and I strongly believe that there is magic in using sport as a social tool to get kids, youths and adults to not only be active, playing and having fun but also helps in recognizing their strengths, autonomy and discovering who they are OR who they want to be. I always strive to ensure that the voices and lived experiences of the individuals who access our program lead the way in creating social change and being a part of Free Play allows me to do just that!

Laura McPhie: Laura McPhie (she/her/kwe) is a member of Pikwakanagan First Nation and of mixed Indigenous and colonial descent. She speaks from lived experience of being a Two-Spirit/Queer urban Indigenous person who is a trauma survivor and neuro-divergent. Laura’s education includes two Masters that focused on Museum and Cultural Heritage, Business and Sport Administration, and Sexual Diversity Studies from Ohio University and University of Toronto.  Currently, she uses her lived experience as a queer, Indigenous, trauma survivor to design interactive trainings, education frameworks, and DEI policy advice for organizations. Laura’s DEI work spans industries, helping support the advancement of DEI knowledge of workplaces within finance, sport, culture, and education institutions.  Laura believes strongly that we are each on a learning path and our roles are to help those on the path around us.

Session Recording

Girls drop out of sport at disproportional rates to boys, particularly in their early teens. This session will share the difference in programming for self-identified girls versus boys and the areas that sports should be paying attention to.

Panelists:

Natasha Cyrville - Canadian Women & Sport

Natasha is the Marketing and Communications Coordinator at
Canadian Women & Sport. Her career in sports began during her post-secondary degree in Toronto Metropolitan University's Sport Media program. Her journey in the sports industry has involved organizations such as U Sports, CBC, and the Coaches Association of Ontario. Natasha has a passion for storytelling and championing women leaders in all levels of sport.

Lindsay Wright - InMotion Network
Lindsay Wright (she/her) has been working in the sport, physical activity and recreation sector for over 20 years. With a variety of additional experience as a participant, athlete, volunteer, coach and parent in the sector. The executive director at InMotion Network, Lindsay continues to work to support the organization's vision where equity is fundamental to
ensuring women and girls have the opportunity to meaningfully
participate, in all of their diversity, as leaders, coaches, officials, athletes, participants and administrators in Alberta’s sporting, recreation, and physical activity systems.

Shawn Botterill
Shawn Botterill is the President of Centennial Little League.
Centennial Little League  is based in the North Central area of
Calgary and provides baseball programs for youth ages 4 to 16.
Over the last couple of years, CLL has worked towards increasing
the number of girls who play baseball, not just within their
territorial boundaries, but across the entire baseball community.
We have taken a multi-faceted approach to this challenge,
working towards providing opportunities for players, coaches and
volunteers in the immediate and building for the future.  For the
2022 Season, Centennial Little League saw a 74% Growth in the
number of girls who played baseball.

Session Resources:

o   InMotion Network

o   Safe and Welcoming Searchable Resource Database - Additional Resources and Organizations | InMotion Network

o   HIGH FIVE Sport | HIGH FIVE - The Best Way to Play

o   Centennial Little League Baseball

• https://www.facebook.com/girlswithgameyyc/
• https://www.instagram.com/girlswithgameyyc/

o   Gender Equity in Canadian Sport

o   Women in Coaching | CAC

o   Keeping Girls in Sport - Respect Group Inc. | Harassment + Abuse Online Prevention Training

o   Made to Play: Coaching. Nike CA

o   Jays Care Foundation | Toronto Blue Jays

o Canadian Women & Sport / Spotlight Grant | Canadian Women & Sport (opening next week) / E-Learning | Canadian Women & Sport

Newcomers face barriers in getting settled in Canada and engaging in sport has many more barriers. This session will look at some of the common barriers and explore options to reduce these in your sport.

Session Resources:

o   Newcomers - Sport for Life 

o   Five Recommendations to Authentically Engage Newcomers in Sport | Blog | SIRC 

o   Engaging newcomer girls & women 

o   RECAP – Sports For Newcomers Initiative Completion! 

o   Free program helping newcomer youth learn about sports, make connections 

o   Newcomers adjusting to Canada through hip-hop | CBC.ca 

o   The Collective Action program for Inclusive Sports Programs that is upcoming: https://sirc.ca/events/events-conferences/collective-action-forum-for-inclusive-sports-programs/

o   Some of the Action for Healthy Communities (AHC)  sport activities/programs for newcomers: Sports program for Edmonton newcomers | CTV News, 

o   Youth swim club serving Edmonton's Ukrainian community fights for chance to compete | CBC News

Panelists

Aisulu Abdykadyrova, Ph.D., is a project coordinator at the Action for Healthy Communities (AHC). AHC is a settlement organization that provides capacity-building services for newcomers. She works on activities that identify and address barriers for BPOC youths in sport participation. Aisulu acknowledges the importance of engagement in sports for newcomer youth in integration into Canadian society. Through her personal experiences of being a mother of a high-performance athlete, a volunteer, a researcher, and an administrator, she became familiar with all the issues of newcomers and would like to raise public awareness about those problems and try to address/lower those barriers via research and recommendations to the policy-makers.

Each person should have the opportunity to participate in sport programs, and sport programs should be accessible to all abilities. What does this look like and how can you plan for different abilities? These are the topics we will explore during this session.

Register here.

Session Resources:

o   CAC Coaching Athletes with a Disability

o   Canadian Paralympic Committee

o   Sport for Life: No Accidental Champions

o   Special Olympics

o   Autism Aspergers Friendship Society of Calgary

o   Coaching Kids of All Abilities

o   Inclusive Play Spaces