Safeguarding – in simple words

‘Safeguarding’ is sometimes used as an umbrella word: but what does it include? Let's first explore the meaning of safeguarding.

Have you heard the word safeguarding before? What do you think it means?

You may have heard ‘child protection’ used before. Safeguarding and child protection are closely linked but they mean different things. 

Safeguarding means:

Prevention

The things we do to minimise risk. It means doing everything possible to prevent any kind of harm or abuse from happening, such as physical, sexual, emotional abuse and neglect, trafficking and exploitation (You can explore the meaning of these terms in Courses 2 and 3 of the International Safeguards for Children in Sport online training found here: https://www.open.edu/openlearncreate/course/index.php?categoryid=863).

Response

The things we need to do when we're concerned that someone is at risk or is suffering harm of abuse.

Quite often the term ‘protection’ or ‘child protection’ is used to describe the response – the action taken when there are concerns for a child (or adult) who may be suffering harm or abuse or is at risk of suffering harm or abuse.

Who is responsible for providing safe sport environments?

Everyone in sport has a duty to make sure activities are delivered as safely as possible. This is part of our safeguarding responsibility.

Next, we're going to look again at the grassroots tennis club featuring Felipe.