A Touchy Subject: The Impact of Child Safeguarding Regulations on Youth Swimming Coaches

This presentation discusses one of the key findings from a study into good practice in competitive youth swimming – how child protection and safeguarding regulations are resulting in coaches avoiding all forms of child touch in order to protect themselves from false allegations of abuse and/or poor practice. It begins by offering an overview of the development of child protection regulations in British sport, and in swimming in particular, before highlighting the impact that child safety discourses have had on adult-child settings, including sports coaching. An outline of the methods used in the study is then presented, followed by a discussion of the key themes. To conclude, the central messages for policymakers and sports organisations are presented.