Joining a sports club at Bath is the best thing I did as a student and I know that many of our members would agree. It gave me an opportunity to make some of the best friends I have, play my sport at a high level whilst representing the University, and become a leader at multiple levels of SU Sport. We are now at the end of week 6 which means that most people have joined their clubs and have been getting used to regular training, competitions, balancing their studies and enjoying socialising. I've seen so many positive actions across SU Sport this year already, with people getting selected to represent their country, more clubs than ever before taking part in the Inclusivity Award and clubs getting involved in community volunteering and charity work. I know there is so much more to come and I can't wait to see it unfold.

On the other side of this, there have been some negatives. Most notably, an anonymous letter I recieved from a parent concerned about the experience that their son had at his club's 'initiation'. This word is nothing new. It is a national issue across university groups (not just sport) that the SU have been trying to prevent for years. We've made lots of progress, however, individual reports of what goes on in specific teams really make us aware of how it is still an issue we must continue to address. In this blog post, I hope to explain the processes and strategies we have in place to prevent initiations from occuring for any member of SU Sport.

Welcome Socials - Not Initiations

We support clubs wanting to hold Welcome Socials with as many members of a club or team that want to attend. These events are great for bringing new members together and should be fun and inclusive events with no obligation to attend. We don't accept use of the word 'initiation', but this is about more than banning a word - it is about banning the actions and connotations associated with it. Negative experiences from initiations should be avoided for moral and legal reasons. But research also shows that the more 'appropriate' that team building activities are, the better team cohesion is as a result (1). This not only addresses the argument commonly made that initiations are 'just team bonding', but also shows that teams could actually perform better without them.

Planning

All clubs holding Welcome Socials must submit a form to SU Sport explaining how many people will attend, where and when it will be, any food or dirnk that will be served, any theme/fancy dress and a description of activities that will occur. If we have concerns with anything from these forms, or if a club has had issues in the past, we meet with committees to go through in more details and make changes to the plan to ensure it is in line with our plicies and values. Committees also confirm that they:

• Will not allow a range of unacceptable behaviours including nudity, harrassment or abuse, peer pressure, damaging property and pressure to consume large amounts of alcohol or concoctions of other potentially harmful ingredients.
• Understand that, in line with our #NeverOK campaign, any form of sexual harrassment or abuse is unacceptable and illegal and should be spoken out against at any social
• Understand the effects of initiations on mental health and will ensure that their experience is a welcoming one
• Understand that breaching any rules set out may result in disciplinary proceedings with the SU or University, and ultimately, disaffiliation of the club from the SU
• Have read an accepted the SU Social Policy, Equal Opportunities Policy, University Dignity and Respect Policy and BUCS Athlete Code of Conduct, all of which are email to the committee along with the form.

Welfare and Inclusivity Officers

This year is the first year that Welfare and Inclusivity Officers have been a core member of every single sports club committee. They have recieved Inclusivity Training (delivered by the SU Community Officer) and Mental Health in Sport Training (see below). Their role is to be a point of contact within their club for any members who have issues. If someone doesn't want to raise an issue to someone within their club for whatever reason, they can contact Emma Chandler (Sport Executive Committee, Welfare and Inclusivity Officer) at ec605@bath.ac.uk, myself at susport@bath.ac.uk, or any other support services at the University or in the SU.

Inclusivity Award

Over half of our clubs signed up to the Inclusivity Award this year, which aims to give clubs the tools and support they need to increase representation of underrepresented groups in their clubs. Many actions taken to increase inclusivity centre around socials and this scheme has already seen clubs taking steps to provide more socials where there is no alcohol involved such as film nights and charity events. A major way in which clubs can become more appealing to underrepresented groups is through planning a complete and inclusive induction process, including welcome socials. When negative reports emerge about intimidating and unenjoyable socials, they often result in people choosing not to join or continue participating in a club. This is hugely negative for the individual but also for the group. Therefore, we promote how important it is that clubs make their members feel welcomed and valued right from the start.

Never OK Campaign

Starting in 2017-18, the #NeverOK campaign aimed to educate our student population about sexual harrasssment and assault and give people the ability to speak our against it. This year, the campaign has expanded to cover all forms of harrassment, including hate crime and online harrassment. Many of our clubs have and continue to do work on this campaign, including getting memers trained to be active bystanders, teaching them how to intervene.

Mental Health in Sport Training

This is a joint project between Student Minds and BUCS, it shows students how to support a teammate if they are concerned about them, where they can signpost for further support as well as how to promote a positive culture for mental heatlh within their clubs. I have so far delivered this training to around 50 members which included Captains, Welfare and Inclusivity Officers among others, and I will continue to offer this training throughout the year. In this training, I highlight the importance of providing a positive experience for new members of clubs as we have no idea what they may be feeling or going through, especially after a big change like moving to university. Many people do not understand the short and long term ngeative effects that initiations and forced alcohol consumption may have on mental health (2).

Report and Support Tool

This year, the Report and Support Tool was launched on the University website. It allows individuals to report experiences they have had in order to recieve support. This may be anonymous so that the incident can be investigated without identifying an individual, or can be named so that the individual can be contacted by the support that they choose. I sent an email to all club members at the start of term, including information on the tool, other ways of gaining support and a lot of the information above.

Future Directions

• Open forum sessions with clubs to understand what goes on. This will allow us to understand the culture we are trying to change and enable us to support clubs to do so from the inside.
• Similarly to the above, I want to make myself available to speak to committees individually to discuss issues they have within their clubs so that I can help them make positive changes. Other staff and officers are also happy to take on this role so please get in contact and we can arrange a meeting.
• I will be looking into developing training to deliver to clubs/committees about this topic specifically. Work has already been done, such as through the CHANGES programme, and I will investigate whether this is something we can implement at Bath.
• Alongside the SU review of our governance structures is a review of our disciplinary procedures. Punishments will be examined and sugestions will be made as to how we can make these more effective. We do not enjoy disciplining clubs or individuals and it isn't the reason I do this job, however, when events are reported it is our duty to ensure they are dealt with and don't happen again.
• Meeting with local police and having them deliver talks on what anti-social/illegal behaviour can mean for an individual's education, social life, employability and life in general. Some actions we have heard about in recent years would be criminal offences and we want to protect our students by letting them understand what that could mean if it were reported. These behaviours are often dealt with within the University/SU, however, a student or member of the public is equally as able to report it directly to the police.

After reading the anonymous letter out at the last club GM in front of committee members from all our sports clubs, I asked for further support from them in preventing initiations. We already do a lot and I believe that despite isolated incidences, we are constantly making positive change, we are a leader in the area and overall our members are behind us. There is and always will be individuals who cause issues but I would never want that to be a reflection of the fantastic membership or our clubs. However, I would also acknowledge that there have been major news stories appearing from Universities in the UK involving tragic incidents and we need to work together to prevent this occuring at Bath before it is too late. Hopefully by working with relevant stakeholders - especially our students -  we can work together to change this culture and improve the experience of our current and future members.

1. Van Raalte, J. L., Cornelius, A. E., Linder, D. E., & Brewer, B. W. (2007). The relationship between hazing and team cohesion. Journal of Sport Behavior, 30(4), 491.

2. Lafferty, M. E., Wakefield, C., & Ryan, D. (2017). “For the love of the game”: The hidden mental health consequences of sport teams’ initiations. British Psychological Society.