What better way to celebrate National Safeguarding Week in Wales (10-14 November), than bringing together people from across the nation’s sports to share their expertise on keeping children safe?
Safeguarding professionals from a wide range of sports across Wales, came together at Sport Wales, Cardiff, for our two-day event in partnership with the Ann Craft Trust (ACT), beginning with a welcome from Carl Harris (NSPCC Cymru assistant director) and Emma Gibson (ACT).
Safe events – bring safeguarding in right from the start
CPSU Consultants Laura Whapham and Denise Richards ran a Safe Events workshop, giving a flavour our safe events training course.
Denise asked safeguarding professionals to approach events by asking “What if…”
- “What if a child goes missing?
- “What if an alarm goes off? How do we get everyone out?”
- “What if someone has to go to hospital? Who goes with them?”
There were also insights about involving children and young people in safeguarding planning, so they understand why the rules are being set to keep them safe.
Laura emphasised: “If you can only communicate one thing, it’s who to contact if you have a concern.”
Gentle challenge - bystander intervention workshop
Dr Nate Eisenstadt from Kindling Transformative Interventions gave the audience a scenario where they might have concerns about the people involved.
He talked through different approaches that bystanders could take, that would keep them safe and give a lifeline to the people in the scenario, if they needed it.
Audience takeaways from the session included:
- “intervention doesn’t have to be direct confrontation”
- “if you gently challenge you can have an impact further down the line”
- “even just a little bit if intervention can make a huge difference”
Dealing with harmful sexual behaviour (HSB)
Marcella Leonard, an independent social work consultant and chair of the Northern Ireland Safeguarding in Sport Strategic Group spoke about empowering sport safeguarding officers to identify and appropriately manage young people where there are concerns of harmful sexual behaviour.
She pointed her audience towards The AIM Project checklists to identify what is normal, inappropriate and harmful at different stages of development.
Marcella’s key messages were about recognising the importance (and challenge) of responding appropriately to any HSB allegations or concerns, building strong working relationships with statutory services, and recognising the role sport has in prevention.
Speaking up to solve silent problems
Trainer and coach Mandy Williams spoke about how to build psychological safety and to have courageous conversations.
She showed that psychological safety isn’t about being agreeable, constantly nice or lowering standards. It’s creating an environment where people can share ideas, speak up, raise concerns and make mistakes.
And psychological safety is vital for having courageous conversations, for example to address bullying or microaggressions, highlight under-performance, challenge authority, or discuss a health diagnosis.
Thanks to Sport Wales for supporting this event.