Safeguarding Awareness Week 2024: What is poor practice?

Basketball England's Safeguarding Awareness Week 2024.

The purpose of the week is to highlight good safeguarding practice ahead of the 2024/25 season start and to discuss important safeguarding topics. 

Today brings the second of three resources to give all you need to know before season start. Missed the first? Read now.

Bookmark these pages to help you with anything safeguarding related.

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Poor practice

Poor practice remains the top reported safeguarding concern throughout our membership.

However, it is important to note that we continue to receive serious cases categorised under sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, and general welfare concerns.

We provide support for cases of abuse that occur both within and outside of basketball.  

what is poor practice?

• Behaviour that is inappropriate and may be causing concern/harm to a child. Poor practice and what may be termed ‘low level’ concerns include any behaviour bringing the game into disrepute of a children protection nature, contravening any of our policy or guidance, or failure to fulfill the highest standard of care.   

Such behaviour can exist on a wide spectrum from inadvertent or thoughtless acts through to behaviour which is intended to enable future abuse. While a lower-level concern may not be seen as immediately dangerous or intentionally harmful, it can soon escalate and become a serious safeguarding concern.  

What would poor practice look like to Basketball England’s safeguarding team? 

• The use of exercise as a punishment, eg if a child is late to training  

• Engaging with children on social media 

• Not challenging bullying behaviour  

• Engaging in any inappropriate physical contact, eg a coach who is sat on a bench with a player and touches the child’s thigh. This could be boundary testing behaviour and should be reported 

• Making sexually suggestive comments, regardless of any intention for it to be a ‘joke’  

• Offering a child a lift home or waiting alone with a child for their parent(s)/guardian(s) to arrive

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What should I do about poor practice/low level concerns? 

Become aware of how behaviour may be considered poor practice and work to address this.

Various resources exist to educate you on poor practice: 

• Basketball England Podcast: Safeguarding with Paul Stewart, Billy Beddow and Kevin Kinsella

• BE Safeguarding Course

• CPSU's Child Abuse in a Sports Setting

How do I know if something is poor practice/a low level concern?

You have any concern, doubt, or sense of unease, no matter how small, that someone may have acted in a way that is inconsistent with our safeguarding policy/code of conduct. 

If you have found yourself in a situation that could be misinterpreted?

Self-refer. We welcome any referrals where people want to make us aware where they may have found themselves in a situation that might appear compromising to others and/or upon reflection, they believe they have behaved in such a way that falls below the standards we expect. This is called neutral reporting.   

I have witnessed/heard of/am experiencing poor practice, what should I do?

Report it to your Club Welfare Officer or report it to Basketball England. 

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