For Immediate Release
June 23 2026
Football Ontario Partners with Brock University
FOOTBALL ONTARIO AND BROCK UNIVERSITY PARTNER ON SAFE SPORT AND MENTAL HEALTH RESEARCH INITIATIVE
Hamilton, Ontario – Football Ontario is proud to announce a new partnership with Brock University’s Department of Sport Management on a multi-year research initiative focused on advancing Safe Sport environments and mental health outcomes for boys and young men participating in sport.
The project, titled Measuring What Matters: Practical Indicators for Safe Sport Programming and Mental Health in Young Men’s Sport, will bring together Football Ontario’s leadership in sport delivery with Brock University’s research expertise to develop practical tools, frameworks, and evaluation resources that help sport organizations better understand and support athlete well-being.
Supported through the Movember Sport Health Initiative, the project will focus on developing meaningful measures of psychological safety, mental health protective factors, and athlete experience. The initiative seeks to move beyond traditional compliance-based approaches to Safe Sport by examining how athletes actually experience their sport environments, including factors such as trust, belonging, respect, support, and confidence in seeking help.
“Football Ontario is committed to creating environments where athletes can thrive both on and off the field,” says Aaron Geisler, Chief Executive Officer of Football Ontario. “This partnership represents an important opportunity to better understand the experiences of our athletes and develop practical, evidence-based resources that can strengthen mental health and psychological safety throughout our sport.”
Running through 2028, the project will engage athletes, coaches, administrators, Safe Sport practitioners, and researchers in a collaborative co-design process. Through workshops, consultations, and pilot implementation activities within Football Ontario programs, the partnership will ensure that resulting resources are practical, scalable, and responsive to the realities of sport environments.
The initiative will produce a suite of resources designed to support sport organizations in embedding mental health and psychological safety into their everyday operations. Key deliverables include evaluation frameworks, implementation guidance, policy resources, educational materials, and practical toolkits that can be adopted across a variety of sport settings.
Led by researchers from Brock University, Dr. Taylor McKee and Dr. Michael Van Bussel, the project will focus specifically on the experiences of boys and young men aged 12 to 25, recognizing the important role sport can play in promoting healthy development, positive team cultures, and help-seeking behaviours.
Researchers from the Department of Sport Management at Brock University are delighted to work together with Football Ontario, and their constituent members, to analyze the topic of Safe Sport and men’s mental health. Through this research and collaboration we look to create evidence based resources for organizations, coaches, and athletes to protect their well-being and positively impact football in the province of Ontario. Michael Van Bussel, Ph.D.
Football Ontario’s extensive network of athletes, coaches, clubs, and member organizations will provide a valuable real-world environment for testing and refining the project’s resources and indicators. Findings from the initiative are expected to contribute not only to Football Ontario’s ongoing Safe Sport efforts, but also to broader conversations around mental health and athlete well-being across the Canadian sport system.
By integrating research directly into community and high-performance sport settings, Football Ontario and Brock University are taking an important step toward building safer, healthier, and more athlete-centered sport environments for future generations.
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ABOUT FOOTBALL ONTARIO: Football Ontario is the sanctioned provincial governing body for football in Ontario, through its focus on transparency, growth, alignment and excellence, is engaged in providing football opportunities for all of Ontario. Football Ontario is driven by a commitment to deliver football programming, opportunities and resources for its members and the provincial football stakeholders. Please visit: footballontario.net
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