WHY DO YOU NEED CHILD PROTECTION IN SPORT?

Safeguarding Children in Sport. ... Whereas, child protection is protecting individuals who have been
identified as being at risk of harm, abuse, exploitation, violence or neglect. Child protection is important
but should be considered a last resort of child safeguarding.

What are the 5 P's in child protection?

3) Children's (NI) Order 1995 The 5 key principles of the Children's Order 1995 are known as the 5 P's:
Prevention, Paramountcy, Partnership, Protection and Parental Responsibility. All of the above are self-
explanatory – 'Paramountcy' refers to the 'needs of the child' to always come first.

How do you safeguard a child?

Safeguarding means:

1. Protecting children from abuse and maltreatment.

2. Preventing harm to children's health or development.

3. Ensuring children grow up with the provision of safe and effective care.

4. Taking action to enable all children and young people to have the best outcomes.

Child protection and safeguarding in sport

Every day millions of people participate in sport; such as coaches, athletes, volunteers, referees and
organisers. For the majority, this is a positive experience that develops social networks, confidence, skills
and knowledge. For others the experience is negative.

Child safeguarding in sport has been given too little attention by many clubs, organisations, funding
bodies and governments for a considerable amount of time. The most common reactions being that it
does not happen, is someone else’s responsibility or is an isolated incident. These three attitudes are
often classified as:

 Denial

 Blame

 Minimisation

These typical responses leave children, coaches, clubs, sports bodies, funding bodies  and governments
isolated, vulnerable and, in the long term, severely affected.

Safeguarding children has both a preventive and reactive component; ensuring effective policies,
practices and procedures are in place to limit harm occurring, as well as having measures in place to
report, investigate and deal with suspicions and incidents.
This section is designed to provide more information on child safeguarding and - by linking with our
Toolkit section - the necessary tools to develop and implement a culture that includes practices,
procedures and policies. These practices, procedures and policies are to ensure that all who participate
in sport remain safe, have fun and learn.

What is child safeguarding in sport?

Child safeguarding in sport and in sport & development is a set of actions that help to ensure all children
participating in sport have a positive experience.

Child protection and safeguarding in sport

Every day millions of people participate in sport; such as coaches, athletes, volunteers, referees and
organisers. For the majority, this is a positive experience that develops social networks, confidence, skills
and knowledge. For others the experience is negative.

Child safeguarding in sport has been given too little attention by many clubs, organisations, funding
bodies and governments for a considerable amount of time. The most common reactions being that it
does not happen, is someone else’s responsibility or is an isolated incident. These three attitudes are
often classified as:

 Denial

 Blame

 Minimisation

These typical responses leave children, coaches, clubs, sports bodies, funding bodies  and governments
isolated, vulnerable and, in the long term, severely affected.

Safeguarding children has both a preventive and reactive component; ensuring effective policies,
practices and procedures are in place to limit harm occurring, as well as having measures in place to
report, investigate and deal with suspicions and incidents.

This section is designed to provide more information on child safeguarding and - by linking with our
Toolkit section - the necessary tools to develop and implement a culture that includes practices,
procedures and policies. These practices, procedures and policies are to ensure that all who participate
in sport remain safe, have fun and learn.

What is child safeguarding in sport?

Child safeguarding in sport and in sport & development is a set of actions that help to ensure all children
participating in sport have a positive experience.

Child protection or child safeguarding?

While child protection and child safeguarding are often thought to have similar meanings, there is a
distinction. Child safeguarding is about keeping all children safe from harm, abuse, violence, exploitation
and neglect. Having effective child safeguarding measures in place means that your organisation or club
is proactively working internally and externally to ensure that children are kept safe.

In contrast, child protection is protecting an individual that has been identified as being at risk of harm,
abuse, violence, exploitation or neglect. Child protection forms part of child safeguarding measures, but
should be seen as the last line of defence in child safeguarding.

A key part of child safeguarding is spreading the message about keeping children safe, to challenge
community norms and build a community culture of always acting in the best interest of all children.

Who needs to be safeguarded?

When individuals participate in sport they often:

 Have a coach, instructor or mentor; someone they admire and respect

 Develop a sense of belonging from being part of a team

 Train and change in close proximity

The factors listed above make it difficult for participants to speak out against abuse which they have
been subjected to. It is also difficult to avoid the perpetrators who are respected individuals or close
teammates.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as anyone under the age of 18. Having effective
safeguarding measures in place is primarily designed to protect this group. 

Effective measures will safeguard everyone in sport, from participants through to coaches and
organisational management. The benefits of having effective measures in place are relevant for all that
participate in sport and include: 

 Participants will know how to report a concern

 Coaches will be protected against false allegations

 Participants and coaches will know how to access support

 Management will know how to respond

 Everyone will know what is and is not acceptable conduct

Peer-to-peer

Unfortunately it is commonly accepted that children can be excessively mean to each other; that
children will laugh and make fun of other children. These behavioural patterns result in harm, and are
often referred to as bullying. Bullying comes in many forms and can present itself in sport as:

 Taunting other participants about skills or clothing

  Excluding or not wanting to be on the same team as an individual

 Discriminating on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, religion, race, etc.

Staff and volunteers in sport and development need to ensure that actions which could be described as
bullying are not ignored. Acting upon such behaviour will set the stage for good conduct and will make
all athletes feel emotionally and physically safe to participate and gain from the positive benefits sport
has to offer.

Putting the safeguards into practice

How can you ensure that sport remains both safe and fun for children and young people?

Millions of children and young people take part in sporting activities every day across the world. For
some children this is purely for recreation, for others a chosen career and for some a path out of
poverty. But it is increasingly recognised that too often sport fails to fully consider the risks to children,
leading to incidents of abuse and harm.

To ensure an organisation providing sports activities to children and young people is doing all it can to
make sport safer for children, the following eight safeguards should be put in place.

These safeguards represent collective good practice at a point in time and will be subject to periodic
review to ensure they reflect developments within safeguarding practice.

The eight safeguards are:

1. Developing your policy
2. Procedures for responding to safeguarding concerns
3. Advice and support
4. Minimising risks to children
5. Guidelines for behaviour
6. Recruiting, training and communicating
7. Working with partners
8. Monitoring and evaluating

View the full International Safeguards for Children in Sport document. 

The safeguards aim to:

 Help create a safe sporting environment for children wherever they participate and at whatever
level

 Provide a benchmark to assist sports providers and funders to make informed decisions

 Promote good practice and challenge practice that is harmful to children

 Provide clarity on safeguarding children to all involved in sport

Find out how to develop policies, practices and procedures to keep sport fun and children safe .

Founding members
The International Safeguarding Children in Sport Working Group founding members are:

 Keeping Children Safe

 Child Protection in Sport Unit

 Swiss Academy for Development / sportanddev.org

 UNICEF UK

 Commonwealth Secretariat

 UK Sport

 Right to Play

 WomenWin

 Beyond Sport

 Caribbean Sport and Development Agency

 Comic Relief

 International Inspiration

If you would like to provide feedback to the founding members regarding these eight safeguards, please
use this online form.

“All children have the right to participate in sport in a safe and enjoyable environment. Their rights are
enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. UNICEF UK is one of a number of
organisations that has worked on trialling these safeguards to ensure that sports organisations stop and
think about the risks to children and have measures in place to prevent abuse." Liz Twyford, Sports
Programmes Specialist, UNICEF UK

“Staff and volunteers who provide sports activities can end up being a real lifeline for children – which is
why it is essential that all sports organisations have safeguarding measures in place, and most
importantly a team of people on-board that feel enabled to take action and do so willingly. These new
safeguards set out the key steps that every organisation can take – right from the recruitment stage to
developing policies and procedures to ensure children’s safety well-being and protection across all
sports." Ann Tiivas, Director, Child Protection in Sport Unit

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

Q. Are the safeguards available in languages other than English?
A. The safeguarding working group is in the process of making the safeguards available in Italian, French
and Portuguese and would welcome support from organisations or individuals able to translate them
into other languages. Please email keepingsportsafe@gmail.com if you are able to support this.

Q. Now that the safeguards have been produced, what will happen next?
A. Over the next two years the safeguarding working group will be working with researchers to
understand what resources are needed by organisations seeking to implement the safeguards, and use
the outcomes of this research to produce an implementation guide.

Q. I want to implement the safeguards but I don’t know where to start – where can I access advice and
support?
A. In 2015 the safeguarding working group will develop a website where you will be able to access case
studies, resources and links to helpful websites. But for now you can learn more about the topic on
sportanddev via the learn more and toolkit sections on child protection and safeguarding in sport or
access excellent support and resources on the following websites:

 Keeping Children Safe

 Child Protection in Sport Unit

Q. How can I get involved?

A. You can sign up for the newsletter and the safeguarding working group will keep you updated with its
progress. You can also download the safeguards and share them with your organisation to begin your
journey to make sport safer for children.

History of child safeguarding in sport and sport and development

Every day children around the world take part in sport; the activities may be social or competitive, may
take place in schools, clubs, organisations or in the streets. An enormous number of staff, parents and
volunteers support, train and encourage participants of all levels. Looking at the multitude of settings
and stakeholders, the field becomes large and diverse. For effective programme implementation,
safeguarding procedures need to be adapted to the setting and target group.

Sport and development is not just about the games; often sport is used as a ‘hook’ to engage target
populations in programmes that work towards development goals such as conflict resolution, gender
equity, education and health. Sport and development practitioners, want to continue to use sport as a
tool to reach the predefined set of development objectives.

To do this, both participants and donors need to be attracted. Having effective safeguarding measures is
essential to retaining the participation and enthusiasm of participants and donors as key stakeholders to
the sportive activities.

Safeguarding in sport has been neglected across the globe until recently. Things are beginning to change
and there are efforts to ensure that everyone, including the sport and development community, is
involved.

Convention on the Rights of the Child

Adopted by the International Save the Children Union in 1923, the World Child Welfare Charter was the
first in a series of documents focused on the rights of the child and endorsed by the League of Nations in
1924. In 1959 this document was expanded to the ten principles of the Declaration of the Rights of the
Child by the United Nations General Assembly.

In 1989 the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which focuses on
four key principles outlined in 54 articles which became international law.

 Article 19 states that everyone has the responsibility to protect all children from all forms of
harm, abuse, neglect and exploitation
  Article 31 expresses every child’s right to participate in play and recreational activities

Global change

In the United Kingdom, serious efforts to tackle child safeguarding in sport began in 2001 with the
formation of the NSPCC Child Protection in Sport Unit following a series of high profile cases including
that of a British Olympic swimming coach who was convicted of two rapes and a series of assaults.

In 2008, AusAID became the first bilateral donor and first Commonwealth agency to implement a Child
Protection Policy. While this policy has been through a number of shifts, it does ensure that the
organisations it funds are implementing practices, policies and procedures to ensure that children are
kept safe.

Funding from AusAID has been linked to this policy and organisations have had funding suspended for
not taking action. AusAID is working with other funding bodies to develop similar policies.

Some grant-making and award bodies, have asked applicants to commit to strengthening child
protection practices; with organisations who apply for grants or awards being obliged to develop a child
protection policy. 

Although many more organisations have developed child protection policies as a result of the incentive,
the practice has met with limited success. Often, the policies developed are on paper only and have not
been effectively communicated throughout organisations as a result of limited support, knowledge and
capacity.

In 2012 UNICEF took the lead in an on-going discussion with more than 30 leaders and thinkers on the
topic of child safeguarding. As an outcome, a set of international standards for safeguarding children in
sport were introduced and a working group formed. These standards are being piloted globally to verify
their feasibility and relevance.

Standards for safeguarding children in sport

At present there are eleven draft standards guiding sport and sport & development organisations to
endorse safeguarding and child protection procedures. They are still considered draft standards because
they are currently being piloted by 50 organisations, governments, funding bodies, professional sports
teams and local clubs through to grassroots sport and development organisations.

These eleven standards should not be seen as an end point, but rather a benchmark of good practice.

 Write a policy on keeping children safe

 Use procedures, personnel and systems that support safeguarding

 Assess and minimise risks to children

 Produce guidelines on behaviour towards children

 Ensure equity – ALL children being safeguarded

 Communicate the ‘keep children safe’ message

 Provide education and training for keeping children safe

  Engage with advice and support

 Work with partners to meet the standards

 Involve children in development, review and implementation of the standards

 Monitor and evaluate compliance and effectiveness of the proposed safeguarding measures

Additionally vulnerable

Additionally vulnerable athletes are those that do not always have access to the same choices due to a
disability or impairment; a situation that results in an increased risk of experiencing harm or abuse.

Various international studies have demonstrated that disabled children are between three to four times
more likely to be abused while participating in sport than other children. Harm, that results not only
from sexual abuse, but also:

 Physical and verbal abuse

 Joking and unchecked bullying from teammates

 Coaches and clubs overly fixated on integration or the disability

A number of studies have shown that disabled athletes are not only additionally vulnerable, but also
experience more harm and abuse. The result is that special measures need to be implemented to
effectively safeguard this group.

Inclusion

It is important for additionally vulnerable people that clubs and organisations provide opportunities to
participate in sport; considerations include: 

 Access to the venue

 Modification of rules for specific competitions

 Appropriate sports equipment

Some fantastic examples include referees who use a flag in addition to the traditional whistle to include
deaf athletes in football and the incorporation of sitting volleyball competitions into sporting schedules.

Hear from some additionally vulnerable athletes on what participating in sport has meant for them and
how they overcame difficulties.

What is acceptable in sport and development?

Five example situations to get you thinking and talking about child safeguarding.
Running laps
Timothy arrives late for football practice. His coach makes him run laps for 10 minutes before he is
permitted to participate in training.

 Has Timothy learned not to arrive late or that running is an activity that should not be enjoyed?

 Has Timothy benefited from running laps or has he experienced harm by not being able to train
with his peers?

 What is an acceptable reason for being late to practice?

Tear in clothing

While playing sitting volleyball the players begin to make fun of and laugh at Emily who has a tear in her
shorts. The coach laughs and tells them to get on with the game.

 Is everyone finding this experience fun and enjoyable?

 How will the coach’s reaction on this occasion affect behaviour in the future?

New coach
Rosemary is a basketball coach who has just moved to a new village. The local basketball team needs a
new coach; she offers and starts working immediately. After a couple of months athletes and parents
begin to make complaints about her behaviour.

 Does the management know anything about her past?

 Have there been any measures to protect the club and athletes?

 What are the possible implications for the club, the coach and the athletes if the complaints are
found to be true?

Keeping it in mind
James is the president of a football club. A parent expresses a concern about how a coach behaved on a
recent trip. The coach travelled alone with the team to a major tournament because of budget
restrictions. James says that he will look into it, but nothing is recorded.

 Is this the first time a concern has been expressed?

 Is the organisation doing all it can to protect athletes and coaches?

 Has the coach been put in an unfair situation?

On the pitch
Samantha is an athlete at the local cricket club. She is never very enthusiastic about coming to practice
or playing matches. Her father brings her to every training session and match; always staying to support
her.

 Who is gaining from Samantha being a part of the club?

 What is in the best interests of Samantha?

 Is this a safeguarding issue and if so how could it be tackled?