08 August 2020: ChildFund’s Sport for Development Team is launching an online pilot project to support sports organisations around the world to improve their safeguarding practices.

Organised sport provides children and young people with many opportunities, but it also comes with risks, both physically and emotionally. At ChildFund, we work to make sure those risks are identified, assessed, minimised and managed by ourselves and our partners.

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 is taking a further step to support sports organisations across the world to strengthen their safeguarding practices through an online learning process, critical at this time when many face to face activities have been interrupted.

The Safeguarding in Sport: Online Learning Pilot Project will provide participating organisations with access to a series of webinars and tailored support to learn about the key concepts of safeguarding in sport and to take that learning into independent work to implement and collect evidence of action relevant to their organisation and context.

As part of the process, participating organisations will be supported to complete a self – assessment of their current practices, develop an action plan and commit to attending regular remote technical support meetings. A range of tested resources that have been adapted to different contexts will be made available to organisations to adapt and contextualise to their needs.

Each organisation joining has identified one male and one female safeguarding focal point to lead the opportunity, as well as securing support from key members of their leadership structures.

Following a call for registration in June, participants are currently being finalised from a high volume of applications. More than 40 countries and 10 sports are represented in the applications, indicating both the need for this work, and the growing appetite from across the sporting sector to improve safeguarding practices from the national federation level to the international federation levels.

“In launching this online initiative, we hope to get more and more sports organisations across the world engaged and committed to institutional safeguarding practices that ultimately benefit children, young people and their sport.” Said Chris Mastaglio, ChildFund Sport for Development Director.