Ensuring the children’s safety and general well being while they are attending any club activity is something that LEFC takes extremely seriously. Indeed, the club would not be able to maintain its FA Charter Status unless it made this a priority.
As a football club with its strong links to Emmanuel Church, LEFC‘s coaches are committed to creating a supportive environment where children can enjoy their football, learn new skills, make friends and develop as people. If we see our squads arrive and leave the training sessions and matches with smiles on their faces, regardless of winning or losing, we have hopefully been successful.
The Club Committee looks to ensure, through its welfare officers, that all its coaches, assistant coaches and officials have completed safeguarding training which ensures that they are able to maintain this ethos.
The training covers variety of topics, these include:
- A coach’s expectations of their squad so that the physical demands in training and matches are appropriate;
- First aid provision being available at all training sessions and matches;
- That behaviour which could be seen as abusive or bullying is identified and dealt with appropriately; including reporting it immediately to the Club Welfare Officer, and the coaches are also required to report any concerns they may have with regards to a child, (which means any person under the age of 18), even if the cause for concern originates outside an LEFC activity. Please see the club’s LEFC – Anti-Bullying policy here.
- That appropriate language is used when talking to the children and also in communications with their parents/carers, including all forms of electronic media.
Other important information:
- All coaches, assistant coaches and welfare officers have passed an enhanced criminal record check (DBS).
- All players and their families agree to the clubs code of conduct when joining the club at the start of each season.
- The Club Welfare Officer is a member of the Club Committee, advising them on current welfare issues and best practice for the conduct of all coaching sessions and matches as well as listening to any concerns that the club may have.
- The County FA’s professional welfare team also work to support the club with safeguarding issues.
All training sessions are open, parents and family members can approach the side of the pitch to listen and watch the activities taking place. - All our training sessions have more than one adult present, to try to keep the adult to player ratio as high as possible.
Club Welfare Officer | Edmund Grainger
Assistant Welfare Officer | Phil Longman
LINKS: LEFC – Anti-Bullying Policy