In August, the ChildFund Sport for Development team launched a global online pilot project to support sports organisations to improve their safeguarding practices. Twenty-nine organisations registered their participation and to date, the first two out of four learning blocks have successfully been delivered.

As a Pioneer Organisation for the International Safeguards for Children in Sport and an awardee of the UNICEF Safeguarding Children in Sport Award at the Beyond Sport Global Awards in 2017, ChildFund’s Safeguarding in Sport: Online Learning pilot project will provide organisations with the opportunity to improve their safeguarding practices.

Key Learning Outcomes Summary

The project will support organisations to:

1. Identify safeguarding priorities through a self-assessment process that will allow progress to be tracked over the project and beyond.
2. Define key safeguarding terms to ensure consistency of understanding in-line with international good practice.
3. Develop a safeguarding Code of Conduct to define behavioural expectations for everyone.
4. Create a safeguarding reporting resource to ensure that everyone knows where to report concerns so appropriate action can be taken.
5. Build a social services map so that organisations know which specialist service providers are available in the community to support with safeguarding concerns.
6. Develop a policy outline to document commitments in-line with international good practice.

Participating Organisations

Organisations in 6 groups are actively engaged in learning and improving their practices, including:

1. Team Africa: including Rugby Tackling Life, Kenya Rugby Union, Mauritius Rugby Union and Botswana Rugby Union.
2. Team Philippines: including Philippines Rugby Football Union, Philippines Basketball, Philippines Olympic Commission Athlete’s Commission, Ju-Jitsu International Federation, Jiujitsu Federation of the Philippines and Ateneo de Davao University/Mindanao Peace Games.
3. Team Asia: including Bangladesh Rugby Union, Syria Rugby, Nepal Rugby Association, Qatar Rugby Federation and Pakistan Rugby Union.
4. Team Hong Kong: including Hong Kong Rugby Union and the Hong Kong Elite Athletes’ Association
5. Team Americas North: including Rugby Americas North, Barbados Rugby Union, Mexico Rugby Union, Trinidad and Tobago Rugby Union.
6. Team Oceania: including Badminton Oceania and Apelu Sports.

The project aims to have delivered all learning blocks by the end of January 2021, when an evaluation will take place to assess how effective the learning was for participating organisations.
We look forward to sharing more in the future!