This week, one of our Sport Welfare Officers, Matt, hosted the latest “Sport Welfare Made Simple” Lunch and Learn session: “Advertising Welfare in your Club”.

We know that volunteers in clubs, particularly Club Welfare Officers, can be busy people with many responsibilities. We also know that safeguarding and welfare are new concepts to many people in sport and can seem daunting and complicated.

That’s why we wanted to host a series of short “Lunch and Learns” on fundamental topics. These sessions are a starting point, designed to drive conversation and get you thinking about simple changes everyone can make to ensure their club is safe.

This session was on “Advertising Welfare in your Club”

In the Whyte Review, which looked at abuse in British Gymnastics clubs, Ann Whyte QC said, “Clubs have not always been as proactive as they could have been in publicising their complaints procedures and making the Club Welfare Officers visible.”

Promoting Club Welfare Officers is vital. Your members need to know who they can turn to if they need to report something. Assuming that the people involved in your club will read your website, policies, or group chats to find this information out is not enough on its own.

There are three main groups you should consider advertising to:

• Volunteers, coaches, and committee members
• Club members and juniors
• Parents and/or guardians (if your club has junior members or those with care needs)

Volunteers, coaches, and committee members

• Have you considered having welfare as a recurring agenda item at your committee meetings? This is

• • If you don’t have any issues to mention, try to share an article, video, or podcast related to welfare in sport so your fellow volunteers always learn something new.
  • Wesport’s free Sport Welfare Club Hub can help with this. Sign up for free below.

• At the start of each year, can you have an introductory talk with all of your volunteers, coaches, and committee members?

• It’s important they all know:
  • Who is your welfare officer
  • What they look like
  • How they can contact them

Club members and Juniors

• Adult club members may have the misconception that welfare isn’t for them. (“Welfare and safeguarding is only for children”)
  • You must find the right language to use so they understand. E.g., “Welfare is about making sure that everyone is safe and happy.” Or “Welfare is about keeping you safe in your role as a coach.”
• For juniors, think about your use of language and how that might alienate a child.
  • They won’t read a long policy that has a lot of complicated legalese in it.
  • Keep it simple. Use posters, images, and in-person introductions which include simple, easy-to-understand language such as “Hi, I’m the Welfare Officer, and if you ever feel worried or unsafe, you can talk to me.”

Parents and Guardians

A report is more likely to be made to them first. That means they must know who your Welfare Officer is.

When a junior joins:

• Do you include the Welfare Officer’s contact info in a Welcome Pack?
• Do you explain what the role of your Welfare Officer is?

Event recording

All of this and more were covered in the session. You can access the recording for free via the link below.

Future Events

Our upcoming free events are below. You can sign up via the links.

• The ‘Hidden’ Mental Side of Injury, Identity & Recovery – ReBuild by Tom | Monday 27^th July at 18:30
• Youth Voice in Sports Clubs: Enabling Young People, Planning for the Future | Thursday 13^th August at 18:00
• Safeguarding Adults in your Sports Club | Wednesday 9^th September at 12:00
• ‘Unlocking the power of physical activity for mental health’ with Mind | Thursday 10^th September at 18:00