East Child Protection

Details of East District and East District Clubs Child Protection Policy can be found here.

UPDATE - 19/5/06

Looking ahead to next season……

Please find details of training for Child Protection Officers. If your club is SHU registered it is free. Not many places, email Ben direct to book. All CPO’s should do this training. It is the same as the course which was run last year. If you have done it already you do not need to do it again.

Please remember that a qualified first aider should always be present when youth are training / playing. It would make sense to have coaches/ managers/ senior players do a certified first aid course so that you are always covered. East District are still subsidizing the cost of these courses. It would normally cost £50 for a course which certifies you for three years. East are offering it for £17.50! Due to a huge uptake of this offer, there are only a few places left for the August course and the date for this has not even been decided yet! CPO,s should check and see exactly who has a current first aid qualification in their club. If you want to book on the next first aid course, email me direct on sheenacockburn@lineone.net

Regards,

Sheena

Child Protection Officer Training:

This workshop has been developed by CHILDREN 1^ST and sportscotland's Child Protection in Sport Service. It has been developed to support those identified in sports clubs as the child protection officer.

Aims:

- To ensure that participants acquire the core knowledge and develop their skills in order to fulfil the role of child protection officer for their club.

- To help clubs implement practices and procedures to keep children and young people safe

Course Details:

Date - 22nd June

Time - 6.30 - 9.30

Venue - Peffermill

Cost - Nil to SHU registered clubs - £10 if book on the course and then fail to attend

- £ 10 to others prior to the night via Letter and Cheque to SHU

Places - 15 only

To Book:

Email Roger Parry rparry@scottish-hockey.org.uk with name and club

Questions:

Contact Ben Glencross on 0131 453 9070 or at bglencross@scottish-hockey.org.uk

Ben Glencross

Development Manager

07793 882 748

Anyone who is regularly coaching or managing a youth team is advised to have a first aid qualification. Your child protection policy requires a first aider to be present when youth are playing or training. Please find attached a list of courses available. I have block booked some places on these courses which East District have agreed to subsidise. The cost of the course is £35, but the district will subsidise one person per club to the tune of ten pounds. That means you would only pay £25. If however you are coaching or managing a youth team for East District the course will be free. In order to qualify for the subsidy you must book the course through me. If you cancel or do not show up, your club will be liable for the full cost of the course. This qualification is valid for three years and does not involve an exam.

Please let me know if you are interested. First come first served!!!!!

Sheena Cockburn

Please see attached update on changes to child protection.

This means that from the 11^th April you must run a disclosure check on those working with children BEFORE they work with them. This means that if you are one of the few clubs who have not yet got their policies to Ben, you will need to foot the bill for these checks yourself.

Regards, Sheena

The Protection of Children (Scotland) Act 2003 allows Scottish Ministers to maintain a list of persons deemed unsuitable to work with children. The Act covers both employed persons and volunteers. (www.crbs.gov.uk)

“It is an offence for an organisation to knowingly employ a person to work with children if that person is disqualified from working with children. “ (Protection of Children (Scotland) Act 2003, Guidance for organisations.)

· Any NEW people appointed to positions (Paid and Voluntary) to Child Care Positions

· Must complete the FULL disclosure process before they have any involvement with children (Under 18)

Volunteers can be involved in areas not having any involvement with children during this period.

Whilst this only applies to new people, the SHU would strongly recommend that ALL people involved with children’s activities are checked.

“A child care position is a position whose normal duties include caring for, training, supervising or being in sole charge of children”

· Assistance to put in place appropriate Child Protection Policies and Procedures, including those of checking volunteers and meeting the requirements of the act.

In order to avoid the situation where individuals within hockey have to complete a number of Disclosure Scotland forms (one for each position they hold within the sport) the Scottish Hockey Union have developed the following procedure. This has been approved by the Central Registered Body for Scotland who carry out the disclosure checks for voluntary organisations.

The Scottish Hockey Union Limited will carry out Disclosure Checks on behalf of its member clubs and districts and partners. These will only be done once the club, district or partner has submitted a set of policies and procedures that the SHU approve of and once they have provided the name of a person who will act as their lead Child Protection Officer or Co-ordinator (CPO).

Once a club, district or partner organisation has received approval it may start putting forward names to be checked against the SHU list of Disclosed Volunteers. Those on the Disclosed Volunteers list will have had a Disclosure Scotland check carried out on them by the Scottish Hockey Union within the previous 2 years. To remain on the list a volunteer would need to renew their Disclosure every two years.

The process for a club, district or partner organisation to use will be as follows

1. The club, district or partner organisation’s CPO will ask the volunteer to complete a Self Declaration Form (SDF) as per their policy and procedures.

2. The club, district or partner organisation’s CPO will then forward a copy of the SDF to the SHU marked for the attention of the General Manager. The CPO should identify the role the person is taking on and the amount of contact time with young people.

3. The General Manager will review and check the person against the Disclosed Volunteers list.

4. If the person being checked is on the list and has a current valid Disclosure check at the right level (Standard or Enhanced) then the General Manager will inform the CPO

5. If the person is not on the list or needs a higher level of Disclosure then the relevant forms will be sent to them to start the process and the CPO informed.

This does mean that Disclosures will not now be accepted from individuals and that they must come through the club, district or partner organisation’s CPO but hopefully this little bit of extra effort will be offset by the fact that there will be less paperwork for the individuals involved. This new process will mean that they will only need to fill out one Disclosure Scotland form every couple of years rather than one for every post within hockey, however they will still need to fill in a SDF for each post and the club, district or partner organisation should keep a copy of this on file for future reference.

Could all clubs please send details of their child protection officers to sheenacockburn@lineone.net , so that a database can be set up. It is hoped to run a workshop especially for child protection officers in the near future.

Child Protection Self Declaration form - please contact SHU for a form and return to SHU for processing. There is no charge if you submit your form through SHU.

1.A template of the policy is now available on both SHU and East Websites. All you need to do is download it enter your club name where appropriate. Be very careful about making any other changes as this could affect the legality of the whole document. The Policy then needs to be approved and adopted by your club. This should then be sent to:

2. You should have by now have appointed or be in the process of appointing a Child Protection Officer. Please refer to the job description of a child protection officer ( link above). This person should not be a coach. Their details, name address, email should be sent to me sheenacockburn@lineone.net. There will be a meeting of child protection officers early next season.

3. IMPORTANT. All coaches and managers who have contact with youth should fill in the attached self declaration form (link above) and send it in an envelope marked PRIVATE and CONFIDENTIAL to SHU Child Protection Officer at the above address. As this chap has all the forms from Scotland to process speed is of the utmost importance. Apparently there has been a recent change which means that club and district child protection officers cannot legally be the signatory for these forms, as they are not employed by the SHU. I would advise you to try and get this done ASAP so that there is time to process the form in the holidays.

Please do not let this bureaucracy put you off dealing with youth . East hopes to help all member clubs implement the policy as painlessly as possible. If you are about to send out membership forms for next year, and you have or are about to adopt the policy you may wish to add a clause which states that it is a a condition of membership that all members agree to abide by the terms and conditions laid down in the policy, and agree to abide by the policy’s codes of conduct at all times.

If you wish to read East Districts Child Protection Policy please click on East Child Protection Policy to down load a copy (It is 22 pages long) or go to East CPP web page. Updated June 2004.

All clubs with a Youth Section or players under the age of 18 must have a Child Protection Policy in place.

Permission has been kindly given by

to use their templates. Please only use the templates below for your club as permission was only granted for use by East District Hockey. For use other than within East District, then permission must be sought from Sportscotland.

Main Document		(Word 934kb)
Main Document		(PDF 551kb)
Appendices		(Word 207kb)
Appendices		(PDF 821kb)