System Shifters

The System Shifters concept creates opportunities to advocate for more inclusive and dignified accessible SRL services, resources, programs and policies by working with a collective of equity-owed individuals/groups and community SRL and allied community practitioners. The purpose is to shift the sport, recreation and leisure systems by co-designing new ideas to implement in communities to address systemic barriers and cultivate a sense of belonging and dignified access to SRL.

Goals

1. Create a framework to cultivate collaborative relationships between equity-owed residents and SRL and allied community practitioners to work together to design social change in the community.

2. Increase SRL and allied community practitioners’ and decision-makers’ awareness of the oppression, trauma, discrimination and social and economic inequities equity-owed residents experience that prevent participation in SRL. 

3. Support SRL and allied practitioners’ knowledge, skills, and capacity to address systemic barriers in SRL delivery systems.

4. Co-design and evaluate a series of dignified access provisions in RSC 2 and 10.
   The System Shifters is being designed so that equity-owed residents, SRL and allied practitioners and decision-makers can collaborate to brainstorm, design and implement a series of small experiments to test and evaluate across communities. These experiments will serve as tangible initiatives that cross-cut several identified barriers to participation.

Addressing Complexity

Addressing dignified access to create a sense of belonging in SRL for equity-owed residents requires implementing various strategies that extend beyond providing fee assistance programs (i.e. the most common approach in NB for creating access to SRL). Existing research and data collected from over 100 equity-owed NB residents have highlighted several influential factors that affect dignified access and belonging in SRL spaces and programs. These factors include experiences and interactions with people, organizations/infrastructure, community networks and infrastructure, and policies that can positively or negatively impact access and belonging. A community-driven and co-designed approach creates space and decision-making power for those who have the lived experience to provide solutions to the barriers they experience in the community.