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.
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 past two years, Terre des hommes (Tdh) has implemented the Keeping Children Safe in Sports project.
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.
On 9 February 2023, the Albanian Football Association (AFA) and Terre des hommes Albania (Tdh) signed a cooperation agreement in the field of child protection in football, in line with UEFA's initiative to develop national child protection policies for each of its 55 members. The agreement comes as a continuation of the previous collaboration to improve the quality of child protection in football, including Tdh's contribution to the drafting of two important documents of the AFA: the child protection policy in football and the code of ethics.
In December 2022, the Albanian Football Association (AFA) in partnership with Terre des hommes Albania organised a training session on “Child Safeguarding in Football”. Since a long time, the AFA has been committed to developing and implementing its policies for the protection and preservation of the safety of children in football, also based on the guidelines of UEFA and FIFA.
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 first UEFA Child and Youth Protection Summit took place on 17-18 November in Tubize (Belgium), at the Royal Belgian Football Association's (RBFA) new headquarters. Forty-nine UEFA member association’s child and youth protection officers were joined by keynote speakers of the European Commission and the Council of Europe, as well as leading researchers and experts in child and youth protection.
The Gibraltar Football Association, in collaboration with the English Football Association, has produced a series of documents to assist all its stakeholders in developing safeguarding policies, sending the clear message that safeguarding is everyone's responsibility! The Child safeguarding toolkit for UEFA member associations served as guidance in this process.
The Child Participation in Safeguarding 2022 Global Summit, taking place from 6 to 8 September, is the first step in a three-year child participation programme developed by Keeping Children Safe.