If you are a young person and
Contact Childline
If you have a concerns about the welfare of a child, you can contact the APT Safeguarding Lead Margaret Blount to discuss. However if the child is in immediate danger or they are injured, contact emergency services straight away.
If this is not an emergency, you will find contact details of other agencies to speak too here
If you are an adult at risk with concerns about how you are being treated or you are worried about an adult at risk, please click here to see where to report a concern
If you are a young person, you have the right to be treated fairly and have fun playing sport. If something is worrying you, don’t keep it to yourself. Tell your parent, your carer, your teacher – an adult you trust. If you are feeling confident enough, the club, group or school should have an adult responsible for safeguarding and you could tell that person directly. In a club, this person is often called the Club Welfare Officer and you should be able to find out who it is from a notice board or club website. Don’t worry if you are not sure if what you have seen is right or wrong, if you think it is wrong, tell someone and they will have a responsibility to follow it up.
The club or group has a responsibility to you – to treat you fairly and keep you safe. At the same time you have a responsibility to the club, group and other young people who are there. Most clubs and groups have a code of conduct for the young people who attend. If you have not seen this, ask to see it. If you want to see what a code should look like, you will find an example here
As a parent or carer, you will want your child to have a positive time when taking part in sport and to do this in a safe and friendly environment. The club, group or school should have safeguarding and anti-bullying policies and procedures in place that all the staff, volunteers and coaches should be aware of, follow and be able to tell you about. You should find these on the club website. If you want to know how things work, don’t be afraid to ask a club representative to explain.
If you see something that concerns you, please raise it with an adult involved in running the club or group. Most clubs and groups will have a Club Welfare Officer and you should be able to find out who this is from notice boards or club website.
If you are struggling to work out who to speak to, you can contact Margaret Blount, APT Safeguarding Lead to chat through your concerns or go to the safeguarding lead at the national governing body for your sport. As well as a Club Welfare Officer, a club safeguarding policy and procedures, clubs or groups should have codes of conduct for it staff and volunteers, including coaches. It may also have a code of conduct for parents and carers. If you can’t find ones for your club or groups and want to see what they look like, you can see examples here
As a club or organisation, we can support you in creating safer spaces for participants through our Sport Welfare Officer. We have Sport Welfare Officers in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, so to find out more about their work, visit the page. Alternatively some more general support can be found at the below links.
You need sound policies and procedures in place, understood by your coaches, volunteers and employees and shared with your users/members and parents/carers. The welfare and safeguarding pages on the Sport England Club Matters website provides useful information for safeguarding young people and adults at risk, informed by the Child Protection in Sport Unit (CPSU) and the Ann Craft Trust respectively.
The Child Protection is Sport Unit (CPSU), is part of the NSPCC, funded by Sport England to improve safeguarding and child protection practices within organisations providing sport and physical activity opportunities to young people. Their website has a lots of useful information and model policies, procedures and codes of practice. A good place to start is in their research library.
Ann Craft Trust is a national charity that exists to minimise the risk of abuse of adults at risk and disabled children. Again with funding from Sport England, it has set up a Safeguarding Adults in Sport and Activity Advice and Training team and lots of useful resources and information about training is available on their website.
Involve young people as much as you can in the design and planning of activities, you might be surprised at what they can or would like to do. Remember it is your responsibility to ensure that what is set up is safe and fair. For guidance to the benefits of why and advice on how to involve young people, see here
Be aware of the diversity of the young people taking part. Who are the young people who are attending? Who are the young people who are not there, or who don’t come back. Are the sessions as inclusive as they could be? Do some young people need more support to engage and take part? Are the coaches or session leaders aware of this and/or have the skills or knowledge to make the sessions more inclusive. For the club or group to be more inclusive, do exclusive sessions need to delivered?
For advice on the how better to engage and support young people from different communities, the Child Protection in Sport Unit (CPSU) have produced the following guidance:
A toolkit supporting clubs and groups to provide inclusive sport and physical activity for people with sight loss
Talking Space: Creating positive experiences for LGBTQ+ young people in activity through inclusive environments
There are many training courses on offer to support your knowledge around Safeguarding. Here are a selection of training courses available throughout the year.
E-Learning
Face to Face
Details of more specialist safeguarding training e.g. Time to Listen training for Club welfare officers is also available on the CPSU website and there are a number of webinars and podcasts that can be accessed.
Operations Lead
Safeguarding Lead
