Poor Practice Examples

Updated: 28.2.25

Poor Practice

BF encourages people to report using the poor practice form. This gives us the opportunity to remind people of good practice and give them the opportunity to change their behaviours and prevent further harm and the need for disciplinary or safeguarding investigation to be taken.

Poor practice can be thought of as inadvertent or thoughtless behavior that can raise doubts about people’s motivation and skills to create and part of environments where all participants particularly U18s are protected from harassment and abuse. Poor practice can emanate from any members of the fencing community eg coaches, referees, officials, staff. In some cases poor practice can emanate from parents in relation to their behaviour towards children who are not their responsibility.

Poor practice concerns are low level concerns that are inconsistent with codes of conduct – which can often make people feel uncomfortable.

Whilst the BF Codes of Conduct make it clear what behaviour is and is not acceptable, below are some specific examples that BF would consider poor practice:

• Inappropriate Social Media connections – people in positions of power (coaches, parents, referees) following (or reacting/engaging with) U18s on social media accounts. There are exceptions, for example where an athlete has a professional sports profile (usually maintained by parents) which is exclusively for the promotion of their fencing.
• Paying for athletes – it is poor practice for individuals in positions of power to pay for athletes to attend tournament
• Delivering private unsupervised coaching sessions with small numbers (eg 1-2) of U18s
• Giving U18s unsupervised lifts. Occasionally there are good reasons for a one off situation (eg late at night, dark, normal mode of transport unexpectedly fallen through) but if this happens regularly this is concern.
• Creating or attempting to create financial or logistical dependencies or giving special treatment to one child.
• One-off unnecessary physical contact with U18s.
• Involvement in the private lives of U18s
• One off inappropriate personal question or comment
• One off failure to adhere to BFs policy around nutrition
• Taking an U18 out separately for a meal, particularly at events where there are opportunities for athletes to eat together as groups or as a squad.

It should be noted that some of the poor practice examples above would be poor practice irrespective of the age of the people involved. People in positions of authority should understand that they have an enhanced expectation to behave professionally towards any person irrespective of age.