Children have the right to freely express their views and participate in decisions that affect their lives (Art. 12 and 13 of the Convention in the Rights of the Child). Adults working with children in football therefore have a responsibility to encourage and support children’s participation. This includes efforts to keep children and youth safe while involved in football.
Children have the right to freely express their views and participate in decisions that affect their lives (Art. 12 and 13 of the Convention in the Rights of the Child).
This online course was developed by Terre des hommes, within the "Keeping Children Safe in Sports" project. The project aims to promote child safeguarding in sports and summer camp settings in Romania and Greece, however, this knowledge can be applied in all other sport settings.
In the fight to protect children from sexual abuse, authorities and sports organisations are becoming more aware of the need to put necessary measures in place to provide a safe environment for young athletes.
Adults working with children and young people in football are responsible for ensuring a safe, and empowering environment for all children and youth to play football. This includes planning developmentally appropriate and inclusive opportunities to play and enjoy the game.
The Guide was produced in the framework of the "Keeping Children Safe in Sports" project. Its aim is to document the process of how sports organisations and summer camps can introduce and successfully implement child safeguarding policies within their organisations. The publication is based on interviews with Romanian and Greek professionals, who went through this process in the project.
This briefing developed by NSPCC Child Protection in Sport Unit provides practical guidelines for managing challenging behaviour (PDF) from children and young people in sports activities.
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This sample anti-bullying policy (PDF) developed by NSPCC Child Protection in Sport Unit (CPSU) provides an example of the procedures that should support sport organisation to ensure they are doing all they can to tackle bullying behaviour.
Sport organisations can use this sample to get an idea of the types of things they should be covering in their policy and use it to create their own.
Awareness-raising is the activity of informing and educating as many people as possible about a topic; in our case, about child and youth safeguarding in football. Through the dissemination of the awareness-raising materials, we wish to improve general understanding of the topic as well as to mobilise everyone to bring about the necessary changes in attitudes and behaviour. We also wish to empower those working with children and young people in football activities to protect their rights, and help prevent and respond to any form of harm or abuse.
Dear members and visitors of the UEFA child safeguarding platform,