Case Study: Addressing Bullying and Intimidation in Youth Sports

Safeguarding in sport is getting a lot of attention. Not just highlighting the obvious physical harm, which feels like it's still regularly hitting the news, but with a focus on wellbeing and mental health also. With global stars like Simone Biles striving to remove the toxicity out of the way coaches have treated athletes as one such example.

This is a risk at all levels in sport though, not just elite, and with this in mind DBS has launched a dedicated campaign specifically in sport safeguarding to improve knowledge and standards, which is worth checking out.

Bullying Coaches

When you hear of specific examples of cases where children and young people have experienced bullying and intimidation, it really brings home why this is so important, to provide an open and fun setting for everyone.

One such disturbing situation that might feel innocuous and quite possibly even make some people utter the words 'toughen up', is when coaches make an experience that is supposed to be fun and happy, scary and intimidating. Understanding the role we play in care for children, and the fact that they come into our sports clubs/settings carrying their own lived experience, including trauma experience, on their shoulders. What is innocuous to us, may be triggering to others.

The example we came across arose at an external afterschool football club hosted on school premises (which will become clear later why this is an important distinction) and those running it were not part of the school.

From the outset, the coaches created a hostile environment, swearing, pressuring and bullying the young players. Many of us have heard this 'explained away' that it's the culture needed to deliver high performance. Or maybe it's defended with 'they're young coaches that need to need to learn and develop their style'. Even if this was either of these, a toxic environment such as this has many knock-on effects. For example, removing a child’s confidence to speak up facilitates the opportunity for more harm in the future.

In this instance someone did speak up; the children raised concerns with parents regarding the coach’s behaviour and this was taken to the club. However, this action did not address the concerning behaviours and was not followed up as it should have been, which led to a rather shocking outcome.

Who's accountable?

Before we get to that this is a good point to have a look at a situation like this because sometimes in these cases, there can be confusion over who is responsible and accountable for safeguarding.

As we mentioned, the location is an important distinction. In this specific instance, despite the club not being part of the school, there is still some accountability sat with them. They need to ensure all those using their facilities follow correct safeguarding guidelines have an appropriate safeguarding policy and all staff are correctly vetted. Any organisation working with children or vulnerable adults, should not be working with partners or providers who have not had their appropriate checks done.

The benefit of school premises being used means the school should already have extensive safeguarding processes and procedures as well as a DSL to vet any organisations using their facilities.

However, if there are any issues or concerns raised the extent of the school’s accountability depends on:

1. the service level agreement and,
2. the circumstances and service offered,

According to Erin Faure, one of our Safeguarding Consultant partners, if school representatives are present at the activity, then they are joint owners in what is taking place. They are jointly responsible. If they are not present, but they know what is going on, they still have a duty to (a) report when necessary and (b) ensure that this does not continue on their turf.

The school’s responsibility as “host” does not take away from the responsibility of the football organisation itself. They have a responsibility to ensure that their employees act in a manner aligned with their code of conduct and expectations about professional and appropriate behaviour in their own context. Any allegations against their employees should be taken seriously, reported and investigated as appropriate.

If in doubt remember that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and we are all responsible to act on what we know.

Who's the snitch?

When the issue was raised and feedback provided to the coaches to improve the environment the situation took a shocking turn.

At the next training session the coaches showed this was not by accident but by design. They announced to the young squad of players...

"There's a snitch amongst us"

...and tried to find out who it was.

This was a very deliberate culture, managing their young team with fear and intimidation. Most likely justifying their actions by thinking they were teaching them 'life lessons'. These are not the lessons children should be exposed to and have no place in any environment.

If the school had been informed it would have helped protect all the children at the club and most likely led to the association with the club being terminated.

Fortunately, the children directly involved left the club and have since found a new one to have fun and enjoy football as it should be. However, the concern is that this does not stop those coaches from acting this way to other children in the future.

The real-life lesson

This is why it's important for everyone to familiarise themselves with safeguarding, research clubs and hobbies you enrol your children into and seek, which is usually free, expert advice when necessary.

Whilst almost all clubs and organisations we come across do wonderful work unfortunately this is not an isolated incident. Had this club been outside of a school premises there would have been even less recourse for raising a concern.

As we've said many times before, there's a need for a regulator that covers all settings nationally. Guidelines provide just that, guides, but if no one is checking they're being adhered to their value is limited.

Anyone we work with proudly shares their association with us and gives you the confidence they're taking safeguarding seriously. Their staff have been Checked, are Safe and Ready to work with children or adults at risk.