Understand the language
Clear language helps people recognize concerns, discuss boundaries, and find the right response. These plain-language explanations are a starting point, not substitutes for the definitions used by law or the policy that applies to you.
Repeated or severe behavior intended to intimidate, humiliate, control, isolate, or harm another person. It can happen in person or online and may involve words, social exclusion, threats, or physical acts.
Why it matters: Bullying is not made acceptable by calling it motivation, discipline, tradition, or team culture.
Explore bullying and cyberbullyingA clear, informed, voluntary, and ongoing agreement. A person must have the capacity and freedom to choose, and can withdraw consent at any time.
Why it matters: Silence, compliance, previous agreement, or the absence of physical resistance does not by itself establish consent. Laws may impose additional requirements or determine that consent is not legally possible.
Learn more about consent from RAINNWhen someone shares that they experienced, witnessed, or are concerned about abuse, misconduct, or another safety issue. A disclosure may be direct, partial, gradual, or communicated through behavior.
Why it matters: Listen calmly, avoid investigative questions, explain any reporting duty, preserve privacy, and connect the information with the appropriate authority.
Learn how to respond to a disclosureA pattern of behavior that seriously harms a person's emotional well-being or sense of worth, including humiliation, intimidation, rejection, degradation, isolation, or threats.
Why it matters: Coaching can be demanding without becoming degrading, frightening, or controlling.
Review the SafeSport CodeTaking advantage of another person's vulnerability, trust, dependence, labor, body, image, or access for someone else's benefit.
Why it matters: Status, opportunity, money, selection, or a trusted role can be used to create pressure and silence objections.
See how exploitation can develop through groomingA process in which someone builds trust, access, secrecy, dependence, or control to facilitate abuse or exploitation, reduce the chance of disclosure, or gain the confidence of people around the person being targeted.
Why it matters: Individual actions may appear ordinary. The developing pattern, boundary changes, secrecy, and misuse of trust can reveal the concern.
Explore groomingAn activity connected with joining, belonging to, or gaining status within a group that humiliates, degrades, coerces, endangers, or abuses someone, whether or not participation appears voluntary.
Why it matters: Tradition, team bonding, and apparent consent do not remove the risk or excuse harmful conduct.
Explore hazingThe authority of an organization, agency, or legal system to receive, assess, investigate, or decide a matter based on factors such as location, membership, role, event, and type of conduct.
Why it matters: More than one authority may need a report. A sport organization lacking jurisdiction does not remove a legal duty or prevent a report to law enforcement or child protection.
Find global reporting guidanceThe Minor Athlete Abuse Prevention Policies establish minimum prevention requirements for adult interactions with minor athletes in the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Movement. They address education and training, one-on-one interactions, meetings, training, electronic communication, transportation, lodging, and changing areas.
Why it matters: MAAPP turns broad safeguarding principles into everyday interaction rules. National Governing Bodies and affiliated organizations must adopt policies meeting the Center's minimum requirements.
Explore the official MAAPP resourcesA legal or policy duty requiring certain people or participants to report specified suspected conduct to a designated authority within a required time.
Why it matters: Duties vary by jurisdiction and role. A sport report may not replace a legally required report to law enforcement or child protection.
Review reporting guidanceAn interaction that can be seen or otherwise monitored and can be interrupted by another responsible person. This may involve an open physical setting or approved, transparent electronic communication.
Why it matters: Visibility and the realistic possibility of interruption reduce isolation and strengthen accountability.
Explore observable environmentsIntentional or reckless physical conduct that causes, or creates a serious risk of, injury or harm. It can include striking, choking, forced exertion, withholding necessary care, or unsafe training practices.
Why it matters: Legitimate training and physical contact do not excuse punishment, reckless endangerment, or conduct unrelated to safe sport instruction.
Review the SafeSport CodeA difference in authority, influence, age, status, knowledge, access, or control over opportunities that limits another person's freedom to object or make a genuinely independent choice.
Why it matters: Coaches, officials, selectors, medical staff, and other adults may control opportunities or information, increasing their responsibility to maintain boundaries.
Review the SafeSport CodeAny adverse action, threat, intimidation, exclusion, or punishment directed at someone because they raised a concern, made a report, supported another person, or participated in a process.
Why it matters: Fear of lost selection, playing time, employment, access, or relationships can prevent people from speaking up.
Learn more about speaking up safelyThe policies, practices, culture, and actions used to prevent harm, recognize concerns, respond appropriately, and promote the welfare and dignity of everyone involved in sport.
Why it matters: Safeguarding is broader than responding after abuse. It includes safer environments, clear boundaries, education, accessible reporting, support, and accountability.
Learn why this campaign is neededThe rules defining the U.S. Center for SafeSport's authority and jurisdiction, prohibited categories of abuse and misconduct, reporting requirements, and processes for responding to and resolving claims in the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Movement.
Why it matters: The Code applies within a specific U.S. sport jurisdiction and is revised periodically. Participants should use the current version and understand the duties that apply to them.
Read the current SafeSport CodeSexual conduct imposed on a person without valid consent or involving someone who cannot legally consent. It may include contact and non-contact acts and may constitute a crime.
Why it matters: Suspected child sexual abuse or other suspected criminal behavior must be reported immediately to the appropriate law-enforcement or child-protection authority. Do not wait for a sport process.
Review sexual misconduct guidanceUnwelcome sexual conduct, comments, attention, communication, or behavior that creates harm, pressure, intimidation, humiliation, or an offensive environment.
Why it matters: Sexual harassment can occur without physical contact and can be connected to authority, selection, employment, or access.
Review sexual misconduct guidanceAn umbrella term for sexual behavior prohibited by law, policy, professional boundaries, or safeguarding standards. It can include sexual abuse, harassment, exploitation, grooming, sexualized communication, and boundary violations.
Why it matters: The exact definition and reporting route depend on the applicable law and policy. A concern can be reported without deciding the final label yourself.
Explore sexual misconductDefinitions vary
Legal definitions and sport policies vary between countries, organizations, and circumstances. If you need to report, describe what happened in clear factual terms and use the appropriate reporting route. You do not need to determine the final legal or policy classification before raising a good-faith concern.