The FA's Safeguarding Children Education Programme aims to:
• Support adults in creating fun, safe, positive football environments
• Raise awareness of everyone's moral and legal responsibility to safeguard children
• Ensure that people know how to report a concern about a child's welfare.
Courses include:
• Online Child Protection course - an introduction to safeguarding, ideal for parents and carers or The Guide – an introduction for parents and carers, or youngsters under 16 involved in leadership roles in football on CD Rom
• Safeguarding Children workshop - a requirement for all FA qualified coaches, welfare officers, referees and medics (also available to anyone who wishes to attend)
• Welfare Officers workshop - only available to and a requirement for all Welfare Officers
Safeguarding Children Workshop (3 hours)
This workshop has been designed to:
• Raise awareness of our moral and legal responsibilities for safeguarding children
• Explore best practice when working with children and young people
• Identify what behaviours in football might cause concern
• Recognise signs, indicators and forms of poor practice and abuse
• Give guidance on what to do if you have a concern about a child's welfare
• Support you with how to handle a disclosure of poor practice or abuse from a child or young person.
The Safeguarding Children workshop pack is provided at the training and a certificate of attendance is mailed to you after the workshop. To find out about the Safeguarding Children Workshops running in your area, contact your County FA via their website or e-mail FootballSafe@TheFA.com
Welfare Officers Workshop (3 hours)
Prerequisites: Welfare Officers must complete the Safeguarding Children workshop to gain a basic awareness of safeguarding before attending this workshop.
This workshop has been designed to:
• Explore the role of the welfare officer
• Identify the support network of designated persons in football
• Recognise the best practice that is already in place to safeguard youth leagues and youth teams
• Provide clarity on reporting concerns about child abuse
• Support welfare officers to take ownership and develop confidence in dealing with poor practice issues
• Provide information on key child protection legislation and the statutory agencies
• Identify areas within the youth league or youth teams that need to be addressed to provide fun, safe, positive football environments.
The Safeguarding Children and Young People Policy and Procedures and information on Safeguarding Children Legislation, is provided at the training.
A certificate of attendance will be mailed to you after the workshop. To enrol on a Welfare Officers Workshop, contact your County FA via their website or e-mail FootballSafe@TheFA.com