Child safeguarding- who is right?

[sparkycats]

Who is right in this situation?

My DH is one of the coaches for a children's sports team which DS attends. The coaches are all volunteers giving up there own time to coach the teams which all their dcs attend along with other dcs. It's busy up at the venue with lots of other teams playing of all different ages with matches against away teams too with other parents and dcs.

On the coaches group they get a message from a disgruntled parent saying that her DH arrived to pick her child up at the venue afterwards and no-one was there, they were worried about where their dc was and when they went home they found their dc9 had walked home alone. The dc had said everyone left and he was all alone so decided to walk home.

Discussions happen on the group and it turns out several of the coaches were still there 20 minutes after pick up time, and had not seen this child. More coaches comment that they saw this child on their way out at the end when coaches etc were all still around. They stopped him and asked if he was ok, he said he was, they assumed he was allowed to walk home alone. Turns out he had been dropped off unattended and the parents were late to collect.

The club is very lax on safeguarding, parents aren't told implicitly that they have to stay but all other parents do. There is no sign in/sign out procedure. Coaches keep an eye out for the kids during/after the matches as much as they can. But it's not an official club, it's run totally by volunteers and payment for membership is paid annually.

This parent/ child has form.

Who is right?

I wouldn't expect a school to supervise dismissal at that age.

I teach Y4 and supervise them leaving every day.

@OnceuponaRainbow18

Is this your kid OP?

Haha! No. But we know the parents and child well. I actually had a talk with my dc about what they would do if they found we weren't there to pick them up or no one was there. Fortunately hey had sensible answers.

I cross posted with you OP. That sounds sensible. Your DH is being out in a tricky position if they aren't clear with the parents.

Club at fault. Being volunteers doesn't make any difference.

Good luck with sorting it out more safely. Very fortunate for all that nothing happened.

I volunteer at my DD’s sport. Kids are 8 and 9. We make sure every child is collected by an adult.

Club definitely requires safeguarding training and systems but in this case, are they clear that parents can drop their children or have they said that parents should remain with their child to obviate the need for pick up. Child safety is paramount but the only parent who drops their child off, is 20 minutes late, has a child who lies to other parents might also want to look in the mirror unless there were compelling circumstances.

@GingerAndTheBiscuits

The club is at fault and urgently needs to review its drop off and pick up procedures. At DD’s gymnastics a coach has to have eyes on a parent before the child will be released to them.

This ^

The fact that it is "informal" and "run by volunteers" is irrelevant. This should never have been able to happen. There needs to be a strict sign in/sign out policy, and a secured/manned entrance and exit point.

The club got away with it this time because the child was found safe and well and without incident. But that could easily have not been the case.

Ignorance and informality is no excuse.

"Are the club still responsible if parents are staying"

Every club/event etc must have a safeguarding policy. That safeguarding policy must take into account the LAs policies. There also should be notice taken of risk assessment. There's no such thing as an informal weekly club, that is paid for. There must be principal organisers, these are the people who could be charged if an accident occurs. Where is the club taking place?

Well yes if something had happened to pain in the ass kid and his parents sued the club your dh and the other coaches could well find themselves on the sticky end of a lawsuit. Do you have the equity in your house to pay damages?

I'm a safeguarding officer for my Dcs sports club and also run our local scout troop.

In both cases we insist that parents drop and collect their children at the door of the club (or a specified meeting place should we be outside)

No child is allowed to walk home without written permission from their parents or carer and we also request written permission for another child's parent to take a young person home if they are lift sharing.

I've had instances where parents have sat in their car and expected us to allow their children to run across a busy car park to them. Not happening as we are responsible until that child is back in their parents care and I'm not going to give any child permission to dive across a dark car park especially with the chaos that is picking up time.

Your club needs to put written policies in place detailing dropping off and collecting procedures (and requesting parents stay throughout the session if that is what you want) and this needs to be clearly communicated to all parents. Also if you have a parent who is habitually late collecting, a policy of what to do needs to be determined eg phoning emergency contact numbers and what will happen if you aren't able to get hold of anyone.

The idea that as volunteers it is OK to be lax is frightening!

Girlguiding, scouting, alot of sport football, rugby etc are ALL VOLUNTEERS. There are still safeguarding set ups in place. Registers, rules, dBs check and safeguarding training.

@RepentMotherfucker

I cross posted with you OP. That sounds sensible. Your DH is being out in a tricky position if they aren't clear with the parents.

dH answer is he doesn't want to get involved or point this out. He's a casual coach not one of the main ones who runs it. He helps out as and when needed.

The head coach said he's going to send correspondence out over the next few days so will see what they say. There is an email address and name for the person who is in charge of safeguarding so I might email in secret depending on what the email says. I agree something needs to be tightened up.

It sounds as if (maybe) the club has grown from something quite informal and is now at a stage where a more formal structure is needed.

I would imagine that the sport's governing body would be able to advise what roles/responsibilities, policies and procedures need to be put in place to structure a club that is safe for participants and volunteers as well. Putting this in place will be a bit of work for the people running the club, and might lead to a few grumbles from other parents and volunteers, but is probably the way forward to make a safe environment for everyone.

If the people running the club refuse to do this, I would seriously consider suggesting that your DH no longer coach there and find a club that is better set up.

It needs to be addressed and your dh cannot just shrug off his responsibility for safeguarding, even as a casual volunteer. The family of the child concerned has every right to report the lapse to LA .

I expect she will take it further. She asked for the name of the safeguarding person. The head coach seems quite defensive. But I do hope he does something to tighten up rules rather than just dismissing the difficult child and parents. They have already managed to annoy the coaches and the child has had to be talked to about his behaviour several times already.

OP I have only read your messages.

This is a similar set up to my daughters football. There’s an evening practice for an hr in the week and then matched on weekend morning that take about 1.5hrs. It’s volunteer run, no sign in/out register, people just say in week through WhatsApp group if child available or not to play a match. There’s a yearly small enrolment fee. And it’s all run in a relaxed way.

Now I can’t remember what’s written in the origin registration forms that we would have had to sign before daughter could start, so this might not be in it at all. However it’s completely understood by parents that this is a volunteer run, fun activity for kids. It is NOT childcare. We are expected to stay, or if we can’t we ask each other to take/drop back/be adult in charge of child during match. The coaches are there to coach, they of course have general responsibility for the kids, as in they are adults and the team are kids, but they do not have any legal responsibility over children.

This is definitely the parents fault. They should have asked another parent to keep eye on their child. Or at very least called another parent when they released they were going to be late to collect.

But I do think the club should highlight that they are not taking responsibility for the children and parents are expected to stay. Which I think your coach is going to do in an email. If parents want weekend childcare they should be paying for a more formal club.

Whether it is morally the parents fault is beside the point. Legally the club could and would be held responsible should something happen and individuals running it will be personally liable. That could involve prison time.

If I were your DH, OP, I wouldn't be handing anyone else responsibility for making sure I didn't end up in prison.

😳 if anything happened to that child the coaches and organisation would be up shits creek.

It's THEIR responsibility. Whether they are paid or not is entirely irrelevant. Volunteers in schools are still just as responsible for safeguarding as paid staff.

Coaches are signing up to deliver a service WHILE keeping children safe.

They need to tighten their processes and learn from this. Not pass the buck. Parents will always be late, often unavoidably. The kid still needs to be safe.

The club is at fault here, they need to make the situation explicit to all parents.

The club/coaches take no responsibility for children - parents remain responsible for supervising their children at all times including taking them to the toilet.

Children must not be left unattended.

The parents are in the wrong. My kids went to sports clubs for years. (Different ones) I recall being late and my child would not have even attempted to walk home. They knew all too well.
On the times I was late, my child would be waiting inside and coaches would wait with the children if the parent was late (I wasn’t the only late one on occasion).
The coaches checked on the child. The child didn’t divulge that the parent wasn’t here or that he was making their way home which makes me wonder if it had happened before. Think back to when you were a kid and a parent was late, did u think oh I will walk home first time it happened? My kids aged 9 probably wouldn’t even have a clue which way to go.
Also if it was only minutes late that the father wen to pick his kid up, surely he would have seen them on his way to collect them?

It sounds as though both the club and the parents were lax today and are lucky the child was safe. I am a parent volunteer for a sports club (not football) that one of my DCs goes to and it's made very clear that a parent/carer must remain on-site for the duration. If they need to leave even temporarily e.g. to collect a sibling, they have to find another adult who is prepared to act in loco parentis for that time, complete a form and hand it to one of the coaches.

In your DH's position, I would be proactive and would contact the head coach and safeguarding person by email saying something along the lines of, 'The incident that happened today with X telling coaches he was allowed to walk home has made me think we really need to tighten up on parents staying on-site. If it's helpful, I'd be happy to set up Google form version of the contract that has an extra bit for parents to indicate that they will stay on-site for the whole training session so we can get people to complete this before next weekend...' Until something along those lines was done, I wouldn't be volunteering to help at sessions.

Both are wrong. Child shouldn’t have been able to slip away unchallenged, and definitely shouldn’t have been attending without an adult taking responsibility for them. Club needs to protect its volunteers from this risk.

Parents need to be clearly and explicitly told that they MUST stay for the activity if that’s the deal.

There has to be some sort of procedure for checking a child has suitable adult supervising them. If they don’t the club phones parent/guardian and if they don’t show up pdq then I guess it has to be treated as child being abandoned? I’m sure if the activity was run as a business it wouldn’t be doing free childcare.

sparkycats

I expect she will take it further. She asked for the name of the safeguarding person. The head coach seems quite defensive. But I do hope he does something to tighten up rules rather than just dismissing the difficult child and parents. They have already managed to annoy the coaches and the child has had to be talked to about his behaviour several times already.

They sound like a nightmare - badly behaved child who runs off at the end of training without waiting for his parents (despite being asked directly by a coach if he was OK).

It sounds like lots of parents think the same way & are prepared to blame someone who is just doing their best to help out. Where were they I wonder and why were they so late?

I disagree that a volunteer is as accountable when it is made clear parents should stay on site. If they don't to stay then they should nominate another non coaching parent to make sure their child is OK & if for example if he fell over and hurt himself or broke his wrist then it would be known they weren't there. What would happen if he hurt himself, would that be the coaches fault too?

Your DH needs to think of the ramifications of this for himself as well as the children. He'll be known as "X, one of the Y coaches". So if things go tits up and something happens to a child he'll have that association.

Do they have emergency contact details for someone other than the adult that usually takes the children in case anything happens to the adult? (Worst accident I've ever dealt with in my career kids was a parent helper!).

Somebody somewhere at the club will have personal responsibility for the whole thing and they are really setting themselves up for major issues being so lax.

Plus as a parent I'd wonder what else they were being lax on - who is the first aider for example?

I disagree that a volunteer is as accountable when it is made clear parents should stay on site

Except it HASN'T been made clear.... which is a massive problem.