Working together to protect the youngest in our sector

Keeping Your Child Safe in Sport Week is a campaign by the NSPCC Child Protection in Sport Unit (CPSU) that runs from 7 to 11 October 2024, highlighting the key role local communities can play in safeguarding children and young people when taking part in sport and physical activity.

The CPSU is one of Sport England's key safeguarding partners and we’re really proud of this collaboration.

Listening - the first step towards change

We all know that sport and physical activity are great ways for children and young people to learn new skills, support their wellbeing, reach their potential and make friends, but do you really know how important you are when it comes to keeping children and young people safe while being active?

I am talking about volunteers, spectators, helpers, family members, friends and carers – we all need to make sure children have a great time and feel safe when playing a sport.

Many of us are familiar with historic cases of abuse and learning from these is vital to inform practice.

Valuable insight has been gained from Sport England's recent partnership with the National Working Group (NWG) on the Voices in Sport project, which has developed a series of resources in collaboration with survivors and people with lived experience of abuse highlighting the real, lifelong impact of these incidents on their lives.

There is a common theme when you listen to survivors and those with lived experience of abuse and harm: the missed opportunities for intervention and the devastating lifelong consequences brought to each of them.
 

Some of the testimonies include expressions like: “The signs were there” or “If only someone had listened, believed and responded.”

So now we must do everything we can to prevent future harm, and it is vital that we all know what signs to look out for and how to support creating a culture where – if you have even a slight concern – you feel you can speak up, ask questions and/or raise concerns.

Sadly, abuse in sport is not something that just happened in the past, because children and young people are still suffering the impact of having been harmed.

Joint efforts to change the future

The NPCC CPSU Case Data Tool Report – based on trends established from anonymised yearly data collected from 39 participating national governing bodies regarding cases that have reached a threshold (cases involving a statutory service, like children's services or police) – identified that between the period between October 2022 and October 2023, 91% of reported incidents occurred less than two years prior to the disclosure.

The good news is that there are many things we can do to reduce the risk of harm to young people and this is exactly the aim of Sport England in its partnership with funded bodies in the sector like the NSPCC CPSU and the NWG.

Recent investments of £14.83m of National Lottery funding into the network of Sports Welfare Officers are providing additional local support to this role within clubs, signposting organisations to the right advice and guidance, and raising awareness of campaigns such as Keeping Your Child Safe in Sport throughout the year.

Play Their Way is also a good example where, through collaboration, the sector has created a campaign for child-led coaching, giving the youngest a voice.

It can’t be emphasised enough how much we need to support sport to develop a culture at grassroots level where talking about the welfare of children is the norm. 

Sadly, many people walk away from a club or activity when something is not quite right.

That may be inappropriate behaviour from a coach, a volunteer or a parent, a concern, a doubt, a feeling of uneasiness or realising behavioural changes in a child.

Children and young people’s wellbeing is fundamental to their enjoyment of being active and the CPSU has done a phenomenal job in putting together a great array of ways to get involved including a resources library, short courses and animations to name a few.

I invite you to look at these materials, so we can all learn to play our role to keep children safe in our sector.