The Latvian Football Federation (LFF) in cooperation with UEFA and the children’s aid organisation Terre des hommes launched the “For Safe Football” project to strengthen child safeguarding in football. Within the project, the UEFA online courses dedicated to this topic were translated into Latvian.
“The aim of the project is to create a safe environment for all children who play football in Latvia. Everyone who manages sports activities involving children should protect the rights of children. We can each ask ourselves: Would I be able to recognise a threat to a child’s safety and report it, or would I choose a passive observer role because I don’t really know what to do? In this context, the aim of the LFF as an association is to ensure an active position so that everyone involved in football is well informed and knows how to take action to prevent violence, and if necessary, to intervene in certain risk situations,” says Alise Pētersone, LFF’s football social responsibility manager.
Child safeguarding in sport includes preventative and responsive actions to protect children from harm – emotional, verbal, physical or sexual. Currently, the LFF works on the development of the association’s child safeguarding policy, that will provide all those concerned with the necessary knowledge and skills to ensure a safe environment for children and young people.
LFF offers four interactive online courses in Latvian and encourages the following groups of stakeholders to improve their knowledge on child safeguarding by taking the free courses (duration of each course – up to one hour):
- Awareness raising on child safeguarding in football. This course outlines the concept of safeguarding and our joint responsibility to make football a safe environment for children. This course is recommended for anyone involved in football, including parents, and for those interested in this topic.
- Child safeguarding for coaches. This course is more specific and covers topics such as recognising signs of abuse, particular risk situations for children in a football environment and how to respond to safeguarding concerns.
- Child safeguarding for staff. This course is suitable for all staff and volunteers who work directly or indirectly with children in football. The course will help them to understand their safeguarding role, how they can take preventive measures and report situations of concern.
- Child safeguarding for child safeguarding focal points. This course provides in-depth training for those who require more specialised knowledge, such as child safeguarding focal points or designated main contacts for child safeguarding who will be handling child-related concerns.
To attend the online courses, those interested must create an account and log in on www.uefa-safeguarding.eu.
In addition to Latvian, the online courses are available in English, German, Russian, French, Dutch, Romanian and soon the Polish version will be ready. If your football association is also interested in translating the e-learnings into your official languages, please contact childsafeguarding@uefa.ch.