Child Welfare

 

Child Welfare & Child Protection Matters

Child Protection - core role of Club Welfare Officer

As a club we have always taken our commitments to safeguarding & the welfare of children & vulnerable adults in our care seriously.  Increasingly this care is being subject to regulation and, accordingly, our coaches and volunteers have been attending relevant courses and the club has adopted the British Gymnastics Child Protection Policy. 

Dave Kingaby is the Club Welfare Officer.  His contact details are:

This does not exonerate others involved with the club from playing their part – as we develop as a club and ensure compliance with our GymMark accreditation all need to play their parts in identifying organisational and operational weaknesses and help us to resolve them.  Your part might simply be to ensure that your child arrives with the right clothes and frame of mind (and a non-fizzy drink in a suitable sports bottle) to attend the session.

If you have any concerns about Child Welfare/Protection, including concerns about possible poor practice, abuse, bullying or abuse of positions of trust, then you can raise them either with one of the Welfare Officers or any of the coaches or committee members present at sessions who will ensure that it is taken seriously and dealt with in accordance with the BG policy.

If you feel unable to address it within the club then you can check out other avenues on the regional website.

Club’s response to the Whyte Review

In response to the Whyte Review, published on 16th June 2022, the club’s Welfare Officer sent the following to members on 17th June 2022:

I am writing to you today, as the club’s welfare officer, in light of the Whyte Review which you might have heard about.  This review was conducted at the request of UK Sport and Sport England to investigate a range of allegations and concerns about welfare within British Gymnastics.  It includes harrowing details of, mostly mental, abuse by coaches pushing their gymnasts beyond what anybody would consider to be reasonable.  The significant majority of these cases were within Artistic Gymnastics but Trampolining was not untouched.

British Gymnastics has launched a new welfare/safeguarding toolkit for which I have just registered to access.  Once that has been granted (they say it takes a couple of days), I’ll get back to you with any new information that seems relevant or of interest.

You can see our Club’s Child Welfare policy here.

If you have any concerns

I truly believe that Brentwood Trampoline Club can be proud of the way it treats its members in good humour and with respect.  However, as ever, we are all only human – if you do have a welfare concern I do encourage you to let us know.  As the Whyte Review says in the summary:

Sport should be a positive and safe experience, regardless of age and ability. It should not involve conduct or practices that cause emotional or sexual harm. It should not cause physical harm beyond unavoidable hazards. Keeping participants safe requires everyone engaging in sport to maintain appropriate standards of behaviour. Where there are concerns that standards of behaviour have been breached, individuals should feel able to make disclosures to this effect. It is important that clubs and National Governing Bodies (“NGB”) deal with alleged breaches properly in order to provide the sports community with the necessary confidence that concerns are taken seriously and managed fairly.

The report suggests that there was almost an acceptance of the abuse and a reluctance to report it.

If you have any concerns about Child Welfare/Protection, including concerns about possible poor practice, abuse, bullying or abuse of positions of trust, then you can raise them either with me or any of the coaches or committee members present at sessions who will ensure that it is taken seriously and dealt with in accordance with the BG policy.

If you feel that you can’t raise an issue within the club, then you can always contact Sam Copping who is County Safeguarding Officer for BG.  Her contact details are

British Gymnastics has also set up a dedicated helpline support service (with NSPCC) for people affected by issues in gymnastics. The helpline is available to anyone living in the UK on 0800 587 6696.

Can you help?

I would also like to take this opportunity to see if anybody else would like to join me in this role.  It isn’t ideal that our only welfare officer is a coach, if you would like to find out more about the role, please do let me know.