Safeguarding & Child Protection

What every club must do

• Appoint a club welfare officer whose name and contact details are displayed at the venue.
• Make sure every instructor and helper working with under-18s has the appropriate check: an enhanced DBS check with barred list in England and Wales, PVG scheme membership in Scotland, or an enhanced AccessNI check in Northern Ireland.
• Complete recognised safeguarding training, refreshed every three years.
• Keep a written safeguarding policy and share it with parents.
• Get written parental consent, emergency contacts and medical information for every junior.
• Avoid one-to-one unsupervised contact with juniors wherever possible, and never in private.
• Communicate with juniors through parents or group channels, never by private message.
• Get consent before photographing or filming juniors, and never publish a child's full name with their image.
• Supervise changing areas appropriately and never require juniors to change in front of adults.
• Explain physical contact during teaching and only use contact that the technique needs.

How we handle a concern

All concerns go to the designated safeguarding lead, who decides on the next steps. Where a concern involves risk to a child, it is referred to local authority children's services or the police. Concerns about an adult who works with children are referred to the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO). We may suspend a club licence or a member while a concern is investigated, and we report to the Disclosure and Barring Service where the law requires it.

We keep safeguarding records securely and share them only with people who need to know.

Adults at risk

The same principles apply to adults who may be at risk because of disability, illness or circumstances. Concerns are referred to adult social care.