20 April 2018

UK Athletics (UKA) has today published the Clean Athletics Education Strategy for 2018-2022, which aims to protect the spirit of sport from being undermined by doping and establish an environment that promotes and reinforces doping-free behaviour.

The Clean Athletics brand was launched in January 2017, replacing the former Anti-Doping department, as part of the the original 14 proposals made within the 2016 Manifesto for Clean Athletics.

The Clean Athletics Education Strategy for 2018-22 outlines the education approach that UKA will be undertaking over the next four years, continuing to build on previous strategies and looking to increase the reach of its key messages.

The views of athletes, coaches and support personnel were sought to inform the development of the Strategy for 2018-2022 and, in order to meet its objectives, UKA will:

• ·         Deliver outreach activities at events to provide information to young athletes, their support personnel and families and use other media within these events to promote key Clean Athletics messages.

• ·         Create a UK-wide Network of Educators, starting with a minimum of eight in 2018, who will be tasked with delivering both outreach and educations sessions as well as informal sessions.
   
• ·         Continue to deliver the face-to-face support for elite athletes, with athletes newly on the World Class Programme (WCP) invited to attend a compulsory Clean Athletics education session. The Clean Athletics Education team will also be available on site at the National Performance Institute at Loughborough University.
   
• ·         Deliver support, guidance and education on the whereabouts process to all newly identified testing pool members. Support personnel and family members of athletes identified to be included as new members will also be invited to attend the induction education alongside athletes.
   
• ·         Continue to support the mandatory inclusion of the Clean Athletics Education module within the formal coach education qualification pathway for all coaches.
   
• ·         Provide Clean Athletics awareness training to staff employed by UKA and the Home Nations, allowing for the development and continuance of a knowledge-based Clean Athletics culture.

Within the Strategy importance is placed upon the delivery of evidence-based approaches. With the availability and extent of such evidence limited, UKA encourage approaches from researchers and have developed a policy document to assist in the identification of appropriate studies.

Clean Athletics’ Policy and Support Team (PST), which is made up of medical, legal and educational experts along with an athlete representative and representatives from the Home Countries and UKAD, will continue to meet to ensure that UKA’s Clean Athletics systems are as effective and efficient as possible.

A yearly review of the Clean Athletics Education Strategy will be conducted to identify progress made against the objectives and to review met objectives but also to address where further resource is required in order to make them more effective.

The Clean Athletics Education Strategy for 2018-2022 is now available to view below.