Safeguarding

• Provide additional, local support for club welfare officers
• Signpost clubs to the right advice and guidance
• Work with club welfare officers to create a safer culture within their organisation
• Facilitate local training opportunities and events
• Create networks so that volunteers and staff feel better connected and informed
• Recognise, share and develop best practice
• Help raise awareness of safeguarding and welfare for young people and adults at local events

• People working on welfare within and across sport
• Welfare to outside sport e.g. statutory services
• With other officers in the national network
• NGBs – to provide insight

• With parents/carers/participants
• National/local campaigns

• Sharing of best practice with other officers

• Advise on or manage concerns – all concerns must be referred without delay in accordance with NGB/Club Safeguarding Policy

If you have any concerns about the safety and/or welfare of a child or young person telephone the Children’s Advice & Support Service (CASS) on 0121 303 1888 or via secure email; CASS@birminghamchildrenstrust.co.uk. For more information on email security click here.

Outside of normal office hours please call 0121 675 4806 for the Emergency Duty Team

For more information about making a referral and to access the Request for Support form – click here

Birmingham Safeguarding Adults Board includes representatives from Birmingham City Council, West Midlands Police, the NHS, West Midlands Fire Service, voluntary agencies plus independent sector groups who provide services for adults in Birmingham.

Click here for further information.

The Ann Craft Trust is a Leading UK Authority on Safeguarding Disabled Children and Adults at Risk. They have a number of useful resources designed to assist you in achieving best practice in safeguarding; to understand how legislation applies to adults in sport and activity; and to know, beyond the legal requirements, the best practice for keeping adults safe within your organisation. Take a look.

A template to help clubs and affiliated organisations create their own Safeguarding Adults Policy and Procedures Document has been created. Download this here.

The purpose of the Adults in Sport Resource Pack is to assist you in achieving best practice in safeguarding.The Ann Craft Trust have also developed a template to help organisations create their own Safeguarding Adults Policy and Procedures Document. Click here to download this template.

Also to understand how legislation applies to adults in sport and activity; and to know, beyond the legal requirements, the best practice for keeping adults safe within your organisation. Click here to download the resource pack.

To support your ongoing activity with GDPR, Sport and Recreation Alliance has been working with their partners Wright Hassall LLP to develop the second in a series of real life questions posted from their working group, which combines sporting organisations and legal expertise to help support your organisation or club. The link to the real life questions can be found here.

This edition of the NSPCC’s national safeguarding Standards and accompanying guidance is designed to help non-statutory organisations put in place clear safeguarding arrangements for children, young people and young adults up to the age of 25. You can download it here. The standards help organisations to take responsibility for keeping children, young people and young adults safe; have a practical approach; and comply with legislation and national guidance. They provide useful templates, examples, and links to further information, and are designed to be used alongside the NSPCC safeguarding tool.

They are aimed at voluntary and community organisations, as well as social enterprises and not-for-profit organisations that may not consider themselves to be within the voluntary, community and faith sectors.

Share Aware campaign 

The NSPCC have launched a campaign called ‘Share Aware’. The campaign is aimed at parents and carers of children aged 8-12 – the age at which they start doing more online, become more independent and use a greater range of devices. The campaign aims to encourage parents and carers to understand online safety and to have conversations with their children about keeping safe.

For more information click here.

DBS Checks in Sport – Working with Adults – the latest updates

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) has produced 2 YouTube videos, one aimed at applicants and one aimed at employers, to show you how the Update Service can work for you. They can be viewed here (employers) and here (applicants).

DBS Checks in Sport – Working with Children – the latest updates

The Safeguarding Code in Martial Arts recognises clubs or providers in England who have demonstrated that they have reached and maintained good safeguarding standards.

The group encourages Governing Bodies, associations, organisations, and franchisers to register interest and support the Code and activity deliverers can work towards attaining recognition along with clubs and individual instructors, coaches and teachers outside of a club structure.

The scheme empowers parents/carers and educational establishments to make informed decisions when selecting a club or provider for their child/children, young people or adults in their care.

The Safeguarding Code has been developed through close consultation between Sport England, representatives from martial arts governing bodies and those with years of expertise in safeguarding. Support was also provided by the Child Protection in Sport Unit, Educare, the Ann Craft Trust and NWG Network.

It is funded by the National Lottery and was launched by the Sports Minister in early 2018.

Further advice, guidance and details can be found here.

Our Safeguarding Officer is Tom Mcintosh – Tom.Mcintosh@sportbirmingham.org

Sport Birmingham Safeguarding Policy 2024

Appendices

The child safeguarding practice review and relevant agency (England) regulation 2018

The above statutory policy has been updated to include new guidance affecting sport organisations. For full details please click here.

Revised Guidance: Working together to safeguard children 2018

For those of you who haven’t seen the revisions to the Working together guidance yet, CPSU have summarised the key points for sport on their website.

Child Protection in Sport Unit has a self-assessment tool which organisations can use to check that they are doing everything they can to keep children and young people safe in sport. The tool will take you through the standards for safeguarding children in sport developed by the Child Protection in Sport Unit. There are simple questions for each of the nine standards elements which will help you assess what your organisation still needs to do. There is an information pack to guide you through each step in a bit more detail.

The CPSU website provides information, guidance and good practice to ensure all sports organisations have access to the resources they need to safeguard children. It features a free resource library containing video clips, best practice, template forms, policies and toolkits, all of which will help organisations ensure they have the right safeguards in place. Click here to visit the website.

Whether you’re a sports coach, club volunteer or committee member – or otherwise involved in delivering youth sport – I’m Involved – The CPSU’s free e-learning training course is for you. This e-learning course will guide you through why, what and how to effectively involve children and young people in decisions that affect them. It should take around 20/30 minutes to complete. Click here for more information.

The NSPCC has produced a new e-learning training tool to keep you up-to-date on teaching children the principles of online safety, helping to prevent abuse from happening. Click here for more information.

The below resources are available to support with your understanding around online safety:

• Childline website: newly updated, includes videos on a range of topics, it’s pretty amazing!
• Childline Zipit app
• Childine partnership with IWF – Sexting and sending nudes
• #listentoyourselfie video Childine
• NSPCC website online safety
• Schools Resources
• CEOP – child exploitation
• Parents Vs Kids Game
• Netaware

UK Coaching has launched a new toolkit that will ensure the nation’s coaches and volunteers are equipped with the knowledge and skills to provide great experiences to others, and support them to better look after themselves as they return to activity after COVID-19 restrictions are relaxed.

Great coaching is beyond just the technical and tactical elements that make up the playing of a sport or physical activity. The comprehensive suite of learning aims to galvanise the coaching sector to fulfil their obligations around the education and provision of five pillars of Duty to Care.

The Duty to Care Toolkit is now available on UK Coaching’s learning and development platform (ukcoaching.org) and is set across five areas – Diversity, Inclusion, Mental Health, Safeguarding and Wellbeing:

• Diversity: Diversity is who you attract to your session. Organisations, clubs and coaches have an obligation to provide equality of opportunity for those taking part. This precludes discrimination based on race, religion, gender, age, ability or sexual orientation.
• Inclusion: Inclusion is how you tailor delivery to different audiences and how you treat people to keep them involved.
• Mental Health: Just like physical health, we all have mental health and, just as our bodies can become unwell, so can our minds.
• Safeguarding: Protecting people (children and adults, grassroots to high performers) from harmful practice in sport and physical activity.
• Well-being: A coach can positively influence the way people think, feel and behave and support them to build their resilience, self-esteem and confidence, which are essential to maintaining and improving psychological and emotional well-being.

The toolkit will challenge coaches and volunteers to demonstrate their knowledge of the principles of Duty to Care and will sign-post them to learning resources that can help them to adapt sessions safely, equipping them to deliver great coaching – and thereby, inspire their participants to develop lifelong active lifestyles.

Coaches who complete the free Duty to Care Knowledge Check in each pillar will earn themselves a nationally recognised Duty to Care ‘Digital Badge’, which they can display with pride to show their commitment to great coaching.

Why earn the badge?

• Showcase your commitment to great coaching
• Proof that you have demonstrated a thorough knowledge of the principles of Duty to Care
• Evidence of your continuing professional development

Do you feel ready to put your knowledge to the test? If so you can enrol now for FREE on the individual pillar pages. Once you have enrolled your progress for each Knowledge Check will be shown