Safeguarding in sport: Issues for Coaches Sally Proudlove

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Safeguarding in sport Issues for Coaches Sally
Proudlove

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Where we started

• 1990s first high profile cases in sport
• Criminal convictions of Olympic and other elite
  sports coaches for sexual and physical abuse of
  athletes
• Multiple victims
• Intense media attention
• Reputational damage to sports bodies and loss of
  sponsorship
• Initial responses geared to dealing with rogue
  individuals not systematic change

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Child Protection in Sport Unit

• Mission
• To build the capacity of sport to safeguard
  children and young people in and through sport to
  enable sport to lead the way in keeping children
  safe from harm.

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Role of CPSU

• Lead voice/champion/pioneer for safeguarding
  children in sport
• Enabler/facilitator/advisor to sports
  organisations
• Co-ordinator/influencer promoting messages and
  influencing policy
• Independent expert anticipating and interpreting
  national safeguarding developments

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Whats the difference between safeguarding and
child protection?

• Safeguarding refers to the actions we take to
  promote the welfare of all children involved in
  our clubs and activities.
• Child protection is an important element of
  safeguarding for specific children who are at
  risk of or are suffering significant harm.

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Coach/player relationship

• Position of trust
• Imbalance of power, for example
• - playing time
• - opportunities for success
• - culture of the club
• Opportunity to teach, encourage and build up

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UK High Profile Convictions
Hickson swimming 1993 Rix football
1999Pratt football 2000 Drew swimming
2001Pedrazzini swimming 2001 Roebuck
cricket 2001Griffin karate 2001 Jones
swimming 2002 Smith gymnastics 2004 Lloyd
tennis 2004Fulwood tennis 2005 Chamings
golf 2006Clarke swimming 2006 Lyte
tennis 2007Phelps diving/gymnastics
2008 Challis trampolining 2008
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What does research tell us?

• Most studies recent 1990s onwards
• Most focus on female experiences of abuse
• Most studies focus on sexual exploitation only
• Few countries have done research/quality
  variable
• There is a significant knowledge/practice gap

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Risk factors

• The higher the performance level, the greater
  the risk of sexual abuse in a sports context
• Males, especially coaches, are responsible for
  most sexual abuse
• Bullying/harassment by peer athletes is greater
  than that by coaches

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Centre for Learning in Child Protection
Research 2011The experiences of children
participating in organised sport in the UKKate
AlexanderAnne Stafford
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Headline findings

• Overall, participating in organised sport Is a
  positive experience for most children and young
  people. However a negative sporting culture
  exists, is accepted as the norm and is
  perpetuated by peers, coaches and other adults.

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Headline findings

• Young people in the study reported widespread
  emotionally harmful treatment (75)and
  unacceptable levels of sexual harassment (29).
  Clothing and body image are key issues within
  sport contexts particularly around puberty and
  warrant further attention. Self-harm was reported
  equally by both boys and girls (10). Reports of
  sexual harm featured at a low level (3)

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Headline findings

• Peers were the most common perpetrators of
  all forms of harm reported in the research, with
  coaches sometimes failing to challenge it
  effectively. Coaches were the second most common
  perpetrators of harm with their role in harm
  increasing as young athletes advanced through the
  competitive ranks.

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Experiences of various types of harm
All Male Female
Emotional harm 75 77 74
Self harm 10 9 10
Sexual harassment 29 17 34
Sexual harm 3 5 2
Physical harm 24 26 23
Total 100 100 100
Total (n) 6060 1634 4426
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• I mean the whole training was like, if you do one
  thing wrong then suddenly like you are being
  screamed at in the middle of an entire gym
  whether there is five year olds in there, or just
  your team in there. You are pointed out, isolated
  out, whether it's sent out the gym or just like
  screamed at or laughed at in front of the entire
  club (Young woman international gymnastics).

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• We had a competition in training called we
  called it juice boy basically, just a penalty
  shoot-out and the loser has to wear a pretty pink
  helmet the next time they go on the ice. There
  was one occasion where the goalies were told to
  let everybody score except this one kid (Young
  man district level ice-hockey, local level
  football).

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• I didnt like how they would grab you to show you
  how to do something. I hated that.. I was a
  coach after I left school and we were taught how
  to show children to do something without touching
  them. And we were told always to ask first if we
  wanted to touch a child to show them something
  (Young woman district level swimming,
  recreational gymnastics).

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• If you were injured, you werent allowed to stop.
  The coaches would guilt me into continuing. They
  would say things like, if you leave youll affect
  the numbers of the sidesTheyd tell me I was
  letting the others down (Young woman local level
  rounders, recreational hockey).

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General messages

• Sport should focus more on a childrens rights
  approach to sport participation and greater
  attention should be paid to creating a positive
  sporting ethos where children and young people
  are respected, and where their voices are heard
  and used to shape sporting experience, welfare
  and performance
• Sport should build on what children and young
  people value about sport participation. This
  includes the social aspects of sport such as
  making friends and being part of a team

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General messages

• Sport should take steps to promote a more
  positive sporting and coaching ethos, at all
  levels of participation and in all sports
• Sports bodies should put in place policies,
  procedures, training and practice which enable
  sport practitioners to systematically tackle harm
  occurring between peers
• Sports bodies should use the findings and
  messages from the research to shape an
  examination of the culture in their own sport and
  address short-comings.

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Safeguarding our elite athletes
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Elite Athletes

• Intense training regimes separate athletes from
  peers in time space
• Rewards linked to compliance, performance
  highest risk at stage of imminent achievement
• At greater risk of all forms of abuse

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Safeguarding additionally vulnerable children in
sport
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Disabled Children in Sport

• 4 times more likely to suffer abuse
• Challenge of access to sport
• Coaches and sports clubs can feel out of their
  depth.