Play Safe – why safeguarding is so important to AITC
Our safeguarding work takes place all year round, but this October football is making efforts to highlight the importance of safeguarding at all levels of the game.
Football’s National Safeguarding Weekend took place on October 1 and 2, while October 3-9 is Keeping Your Child Safe in Sport Week.
Holly Baker, our Safeguarding Officer, says that safeguarding is at the heart of everything we do.
“At Albion in the Community we always have safeguarding in mind,” she told us, “the wellbeing of our participants is always the most important thing.
“We’re really proud to back the Play Safe campaign. Our safeguarding work never stops of course, but campaigns like this help to shine a light on the importance of safeguarding in football.
“Everyone here plays their part in safeguarding. We want every person we work with to feel safe and secure, and we take this work incredibly seriously.”
Safeguarding is a key priority for us. We regularly run workshops for coaches, parents, and carers involved in football to keep them up to speed with all the latest safeguarding information.
We also deliver sessions with children and young people directly, letting them know the importance of safeguarding and what to do if they ever need to find help.
The Play Safe campaign
We also back Play Safe – a national campaign led by The FA to raise awareness of the importance of safeguarding in football.
Play Safe’s main focus this year is on parents and carers, with two key messages to convey:
- How parents and carers play a vital role in safeguarding in football
- Encouragement to take a new free online safeguarding course created specifically for parents/carers
The FA’s Survivor Support and Safeguarding Advisory Group (FASSSAG) has encouraged parents and carers to take the new safeguarding course:
“We have input into the course and helped frame its key messages from our collective experiences. It’s vitally important to us that every parent/carer understands the role they need to play in football. Taking this course can make a real difference – we are asking every parent/carer to commit to help ensure football is ever-safer.”
The support of FASSSAG has been welcomed by FA Chief Executive Mark Bullingham, himself a parent and youth football coach.
“The FASSSAG has been important in helping us create our new strategy moving forwards and we really appreciate their input into the new course. I have taken the new course and encourage all parents/carers across football to take it too,” he said.
“Ultimately, safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility. We all need to ensure that everyone involved in football – particularly children and young people – has a consistently safe and positive experience of our great game. Play Safe reminds everyone of that responsibility and keeps safeguarding front of mind, which is exactly where it should be.”
Play Safe is being run in partnership with the NSPCC and has the full backing of the Premier League, EFL, Barclays Women’s Super League and Barclays Women’s Championship. It’s also supported and being run across every other level of the game.
Find out more about our work in safeguarding: https://bhafcfoundation.org.uk/about-us/about/safeguarding/