Putting safeguards in place

What is a safeguarding policy statement?

A safeguarding policy outlines your safeguarding intention to protect children and young people whilst in your care. It also makes it clear to staff, volunteers, parents, carers and children what you and your organisation will do to keep children and young people safe.

Why is a safeguarding policy statement important?

Your policy should outline your commitment to safeguarding children and young people and establishes a safeguarding culture in your sport or activity. Having a safeguarding policy statement in place helps to protect children and young people from harm, as well as protecting your staff and volunteers too. Without a policy statement there is no clear safeguarding plan to work to, that is underpinned by government legislation or statutory guidance.

What should your safeguarding policy statement include?

• your acknowledgement of your duty of care to safeguard, protect and promote the welfare of children and young people
• your commitment to making sure safeguarding practice reflects statutory responsibilities, government guidance and complies with best practice
• contact details of a safeguarding lead person, and any deputy roles that support your lead person
• reference to legislation and statutory guidance that underpin your policy
• your commitment to being inclusive to everyone
• the date your policy was last updated

How often should your safeguarding policy statement and procedures be updated?

These should be reviewed a year after they have first been developed and then every three years, or in the following circumstances:

• changes in legislation or government guidance
• as required by the local safeguarding partnership, UK Sport or home county sports councils
• because of any other significant change or event

Writing a safeguarding policy statement

We’ve developed a sample safeguarding policy statement which you can use and adapt to suit your needs. Your safeguarding policy statement should make it clear to staff, volunteers, parents and children what you will do to keep children and young people safe whilst in your care.

What are safeguarding procedures?

Safeguarding procedures outline how you will protect children and young people and what practical safeguarding measures will be put in place to do so.

Why are safeguarding procedures important?

Safeguarding procedures provide you with guidance that clearly outlines how to respond and act on safeguarding topics. Without clear procedures it may result in an inconsistent approach to safeguarding within your club, activity or organisation.

What safeguarding procedures should be in place?

We’ve created some sample procedures on various topics that your club, activity or organisation could use as a guide to create your own procedures. These include:

• away day trips
• codes of conduct
• events held in public spaces
• missing children and young people at sports events
• online safety and social media
• overnight trips and international travel
• photography and filming
• preventing bullying and cyberbullying
• reporting and responding to a safeguarding concern
• safe use of changing facilities
• staffing and supervision ratios
• transporting children and young people

Complaints and grievances

Complaints or grievances should be raised if you are concerned about how something has been handled within a club or activity. It's important that the organisation has a procedure for dealing with complaints or grievances from a child, staff member, volunteer, parent or carer.

Promoting these processes will help to develop an open culture where children and staff feel able to raise any worries or concerns. This should be linked to the organisation's complaints procedures, ensuring the provision of support and advocacy for the people involved.

Whistleblowing

Whistleblowing occurs when an individual raises a concern about dangerous or illegal activity, or any wrongdoing within their club or organisation. It's important that people within your organisation have the confidence to come forward to speak or act if they're unhappy with anything.

The NSPCC has a whistleblowing advice line to support professionals who have concerns about how child protection issues are being handled in their own or another organisation.

Key safeguarding roles and responsibilities

There are various safeguarding roles in sport and physical activity depending on the organisation and context. Here we outline the different roles and responsibilities within sport and physical activities.

Club welfare officer or Club safeguarding officer

The person with primary responsibility for managing and reporting concerns about children and for putting into place procedures to safeguard children in the club or activity.

See our sample job description for a club welfare officer role description.

Regional or county welfare officer or Regional or county safeguarding officer

The lead person within an established organisational region or county sport or activity with primary responsibility for managing and reporting concerns about children and young people. This role is also responsible for putting into place procedures to safeguard children and supporting the club welfare officers, where relevant.

See our sample county or regional welfare officer role description.

National lead safeguarding officer, organisational lead or safeguarding lead

The designated person with primary responsibility for managing and reporting concerns about children and for putting into place procedures to safeguard children in the organisation, including supporting club, county and regional welfare officers, where relevant.

See our sample lead safeguarding officer role description.

Board safeguarding champion or lead

The role of board safeguarding lead is to steer and inform safeguarding discussion and planning within board meetings, to ensure the board prioritise these discussions and resource appropriately. They’re the link between the lead safeguarding officer and the board.

The person in this role should understand their organisation’s safeguarding structure and procedures as well as having strategic insight into safeguarding and child protection issues. This role includes:

• supporting the organisation to maintain the safeguarding standards and embedding good practice
• driving the development and implementation of a safeguarding action plan
• embedding safeguarding within the work, discussions, and decisions of the board
• promoting a culture of listening to children and young people
• providing support to the safeguarding lead through regular meetings and discussions
• promoting safeguarding at a strategic level to the wider network

See our sample board safeguarding champion role description.

We've developed safeguarding training for management board members, to book your place - see our upcoming safeguarding training courses.

Local Safeguarding Partnerships (LSPs)

Local Safeguarding Partnerships (formerly Local Safeguarding Children Boards or LSCBs) are responsible for local arrangements for protecting children and young people. They provide inter-agency guidelines for child protection.

Links to the Local Safeguarding Partnerships for each region can be found on the Safe Activities for Everyone (SAFE) website.

Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) – England, Wales and Scotland

A LADO, or a team of officers, work within children’s services departments and are responsible for the management and oversight of allegations.
They should be alerted to all cases in which it is alleged that a person who works with children (in a paid, unpaid, volunteer, casual, agency or self-employed capacity) has:

• behaved in a way that has harmed, or may have harmed, a child
• possibly committed a criminal offence against children
• behaved towards a child or children in a way that indicates they may pose a risk of harm to children
• behaved or may have behaved in a way that indicated they may not be suitable to work with children

Read our LADO guide to learn more about their role in helping to keep children safe in sport and activity.

Recruiting, training and supporting staff and volunteers

It's important to recruit and train the right people to work with children and young people within your club, activity or organisation.

Recruiting the right people

Most people who want to work or volunteer with young people are well motivated; without them sports organisations could not operate.

Unfortunately, some individuals are not appropriate to work with children and young people. So, it's essential that you have effective recruitment and selection procedures for staff and volunteers. This will help to screen out and discourage those who are not suitable from joining your club or activity.

Staff supervision, support and training

Once recruited, all staff and volunteers should be well informed, trained, supervised and supported to ensure that they effectively safeguard children and know how to respond to any concerns or worries.

For more guidance, see our safer recruitment topic pages.

New starters

We have created guidance that will help you once you’ve recruited a new starter, which includes:

• key areas to cover in your induction process
• establishing training needs
• probationary and trial period
• training

Download our new starter induction checklist for more information.

Training

There are currently no formal qualifications specifically for safeguarding and protecting children in sport and activities. However, training developed by sports and other organisations is available, to strengthen the skills and knowledge of the workforce to safeguard children and young people.

Training plays an important role in equipping staff and volunteers to do their job safely and effectively. Different safeguarding training is available depending on the person's role.

• advice about choosing the right training
• training needs analysis guidance
• writing training plans

Responding to and reporting concerns

It's not the responsibility of anyone working in a club, activity or organisation to decide whether or not child abuse has taken place. However, there is a responsibility to:

1. recognise - be able to identify signs of abuse
2. respond - take immediate action by listening and following procedures
3. report - inform the relevant safeguarding leads and authorities
4. record - keep accurate records

Your club, activity or organisation should have one or more people with specific responsibility for safeguarding at both national (where relevant) and local levels.

These safeguarding leads will:

• coordinate concerns about children and young people – see our incident reporting form
• support staff and volunteers working in the club or activity
• put safeguards in place – see our policies and procedures guidance
• act on reports of concerns – see our safeguarding reporting-procedure flowcharts

Recognising a safeguarding concern

By having the right people who have received the right safeguarding training your organisation is more able to recognise a safeguarding concern. This concern may be inside or outside of the sport setting.

Learn more about child abuse in sport settings.

Responding to a safeguarding concern

Each child’s disclosure journey is unique. There is no single way they will share their experience and it may take several gradual conversations over time. The most important thing you can do is show them you are ready to listen.

There are some things you can do to help create a safe space for a better conversation. 

You can:

• open up - use open body language and focus on them
• slow down – let them go at their own pace
• reflect back – repeat back what they have said using their own words

This animation explores more about responding in the moment. 

Watch the Welsh version on YouTube

Visit NSPCC Learning for more resources about responding in the moment.

Reporting safeguarding concerns

All concerns about a child or young person should be reported to the safeguarding lead person, (club welfare officer or national safeguarding lead) and your organisation’s procedures followed.

Some concerns such as potential child abuse will need to be referred to statutory agencies like the police or children's services. Other concerns - sometimes called lower-level concerns - refers to any concern, doubt, or sense of unease that someone may have acted in a way that is inconsistent with the codes of conduct, should be investigated in line with your organisation's procedures. 

If you are unsure, the NSPCC Helpline is always available to support you. 

For further information, visit our guidance on:

• safeguarding reporting procedures
• responding to reports of non-recent abuse in sport
• information sharing – safeguarding concerns
• case management tool

Recording

All concerns need to be recorded. 

Include:

• the concern
• who it was responded to
• where it was reported to
• the relevant times and dates and what the outcome of this report was

Useful resources for this include our Incident reporting referral form and Case management tool.

You should also be aware of how to store and retain this information – see our guidance on child protection records retention and storage.

Building and embedding safeguards

Creating a safeguarding plan

Using an effective safeguarding plan enables clubs, activities and organisations to meet their safeguarding responsibilities by setting out the work being done to make activities safer for everyone. It may be useful to consider how you communicate and measure your safeguarding expectations.

We’ve developed sports safeguarding tools which you can use to help support your safeguarding processes and progress.

The safeguarding plan should bring together the safeguarding work taking place within your organisation, club or activity. This should include any safeguarding priorities, ongoing projects, and areas for development as well as the day-to-day work.

See our guidance on writing a safeguarding plan which will help with creating your own safeguarding plans.

Links to other procedures

It's useful to cross-reference other relevant organisational procedures including your:

• equality, diversity and inclusion procedures
• complaints and grievance procedures
• disciplinary procedures
• health and safety procedure

A safeguarding board report is one of the main ways you, as a board member, executive or senior leader, discharge your legal, moral and strategic responsibilities for protecting people.

Here is how to ensure the report you receive (and the decisions you make) provide genuine assurance and drive cultural change.

1. Look for trends

When assessing a report, it’s important to look for trends in the information provided. This can tell you more about how an organisation is consistently performing when it comes to dealing with safeguarding concerns. 

One trend to look out for is the types of concerns being raised. If there are patterns, why might this be the case?  For example, if there are lots of concerns being flagged up about online safety, could this be because staff have been trained in spotting this type of concern, so are better able to spot and report them?

It’s also a good idea to look for trends in reporting behaviour, response times and audit outcomes.  Is staff confidence increasing, meaning more reports are being made, and responses are coming in quicker? Or are there improvements to be made here because reports are minimal and responses are slow?

When looking at training, consider the competence levels of staff after the training, not just the completion rates. This helps to work out if training has been effective, or if further training is needed.

How to use it:

Ask: What does this trend tell us about culture, risk and future decision making?

2. Think strategically

Track progress against strategic priorities 

You should receive clear updates on:

• safeguarding strategy milestones
• policy and governance improvements
• workforce development and training
• cross departmental progress

How to use it:

Look for movement over time, not just activities completed.

3. Consider culture

Examine the culture behind the data

Safeguarding is fundamentally cultural. A strong report should give you visibility of:

• how staff perceive safeguarding
• whether people feel safe to speak up
• whether learning is being embedded across the workforce
• indicators of psychological safety and accountability

How to use it:

Scrutinise culture as rigorously as you would finances or operational performance.

4. Consider patterns

Look for clear organisational learning.

A good report tells you what the organisation is learning; not just what has happened.

Expect to see:

• patterns emerging from cases and concerns
• lessons learned from internal reviews
• improvements made as a result
• areas still requiring change

How to use it:

Ask: How do we know this learning is embedded and not just written down?

5. Clear decisions

Ensure there are clear decision points

Every safeguarding report should end with a direct ask of the board:

• what needs approval
• what requires endorsement
• what needs additional resourcing
• where strategic guidance is needed

How to use it:

Ensure all decisions are recorded clearly within meeting minutes and followed up—this is critical for assurance and accountability.

6. Be transparent

Transparency and professional candour

A high-quality report is quality report is:

• honest about weaknesses
• evidence based
• forward-looking
• free from unnecessary operational detail

How to use it:

Create an environment where transparency is rewarded, not punished.