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

The issue is @converseandjeans the OP has stated that it's an "unspoken" rule that parents stay. So that's not clear

And even when the parents are there, the staff (volunteers or otherwise) of a proper club, which one with membership fees will be, are the ones responsible for the children. They are just as accountable as anyone else involved in child activities.

Also even if you have a rule of one thing you need an actual policy that makes things very clear.

So the rule is "parent has to stay" - what happens if a child turns up alone? What happens if a parent leaves mid session? What happens if a parent has two children in sessions and one gets hurt and needs to go to hospital - does one stay or both go?

Even when things are unlikely to happen they need to have a policy. Right up to at which point will the group contact the police and social services about an uncollected child and who has the responsibility to stay with them.

It's a bit of a tricky one - fault on both sides I think.
It would be better for the club to have a written policy on this, to ensure everyone knows in advance where they stand.

I'm a cub leader, supervising 8-10 year olds. We never let a child go home on their own, they have to point out their parent before we let them leave. I did once have a child tell me he was allowed to walk home on his own, so I simply said I'd give his mum a quick ring to see if it was ok, at which point he backed down and told me he would wait for mum to arrive.

On the other hand, my childrens' primary school let KS2 children leave on their own, the staff would have no idea if they had been collected or walked home on their own. But of course, they were absolutely clear that this was the policy, and parents knew to coach their children on what to do if they were running late.

It doesn't matter that it's a voluntary group it's an organisation that involves children and should even just morally be following guidance on safeguarding imo

How is the group organised how are costs paid for?

Membership of what? Is it a team a charity? Are they affiliated with a larger body like an FA club?

This sounds SO badly run and frankly I wonder about all the other things like public liability insurance?

I have SO many questions!

If something HAD happened to the child - either during coaching or on this walk home I'm thinking the coaches could be sued or even face criminal charges

It sounds far to big an entity to truly be informal legally speaking!

Are these volunteers all DBS checked?

This is one of my MANY questions!

Seriously with all the revelations in recent years of abuse within these kind of organisations wtf are the coaches thinking?!

I'm with pps saying the club needs to cease occurring until all of this kinda stuff is properly sorted!

This sounds like the PERFECT stalking ground for predators to be quite honest!

I was involved in volunteer youth roles for many years - scouts, guides, youth clubs, d of e, sports clubs - it's really not on to run something like this for kids and NOT have proper organisation

As it's a sport are the coaches qualified so they're not giving guidance that could lead to injury?

Have health and safety assessments been made?

Are the coaches insured?

Who has access to and manages the money, are there procedures in place to prevent the possibility of embezzlement etc? Potentially there are vat and other taxation issues

Are the coaches dbs (or equivalent) background checked?

Have they even had safeguarding training at all - this is as much to protect them from malicious allegations as anything else!

No, my DH wasn't. But the kids are never left alone with the kids. Parents always watching nearby.

No dbs checks?! What the hell?! This organisation is playing with fire!

"Parents always watching nearby"

1 grooming happens WITH parents present

2 abuse can happen WITH parents present

3 clearly not "always" as these parents weren't!

4 leaves coaches WIDE open to malicious allegations, blackmail, civil and criminal actions etc

The organisation your dh is coaching for are unutterably irresponsible and frankly STUPID!

The issue is there are no rules?

Exactly!

This is a disaster waiting to happen!

While dbs not a legal requirement (which I was shocked to find!) I think it's extremely foolish with your description of the setup for this group NOT to do this!

I would not allow ANY child of mine to be part of such a haphazard, irresponsible and disorganised group like this!

The parent would take them. but as has already been established the coaches don't even know if the parents are there!

Are the kids changing clothes at any point while there?

What exactly is the membership fee paying for? It certainly isn't qualified trained and responsible supervision!

I can't think of any sport that allows such lax set ups

I don't think any in the uk do now! There's been so much scandal around coaches etc they daren't!

Sounds like a peodophiles dream
Yep!

Ask your dh if continuing to volunteer for this organisation is worth his being vulnerable to being sued (possibly for £100,000's), accused of abuse or neglect, or even facing a criminal trial?! or losing your kids?!

The club - and you and dh - were very LUCKY nothing awful happened!

How much IS your house worth? Does you or your dh's job require a clean slate legally both civilly and criminally? What about your mortgage?

I'm betting these coaches/this club ALSO don't know each child's relevant medical history allergies etc? And clearly don't have in case of emergency contacts or their Drs details?

Shambles DANGEROUS shambles

dH answer is he doesn't want to get involved or point this out

But he IS involved by being a coach

There is an email address and name for the person who is in charge of safeguarding

Wow! They want sacking for starters!

They have already managed to annoy the coaches and the child has had to be talked to about his behaviour several times already.

Largely irrelevant but quite honestly I can't imagine the parents sending their children to such a poorly run club are exactly the most responsible types themselves - unless they've been VERY misled!

However it’s completely understood by parents that this is a volunteer run, fun activity for kids. It is NOT childcare.

Doesn't matter, legally they're liable if anything happens to the kids.

but they do not have any legal responsibility over children. yes they do actually

Every adult working with children or vulnerable adults even in a voluntary capacity has a LEGAL duty of care to them.

That is the law certainly in England wales and Scotland not sure about Northern Ireland but I imagine true there too.

Pps may disagree that volunteers should be responsible but the fact is legally they are!

I'm genuinely horrified and this is one of those threads I actually HOPE (but fear isn't) is false. Or that ops dhs understanding of various matters is wrong - though if genuine then I think the fact that ops dh hasn't had a dbs check screams irresponsible management of the club!

The club is at fault. It's really, really dodgy. They need to either stop running or tighten up the running immediately. This a disaster waiting to happen.

@callycustard

The parents should either stay for the coaching session or arrive on time to pick them up. Coaches do have a duty of care but they aren't babysitters. The parents have a cheek complaining when they were the ones late for their own kid!

I agree with this - at our football club, it's the parents responsibility to stay or make arrangements for another parent to take their child home. Coaches aren't babysitters and these parents sound very cheeky expecting otherwise.

I can see how it is possible for a kid to sneak off at the end of a session if they wanted to and the parent doesn't turn up. But the whole set up seems really poor. Why isn't your DH DBS checked? Has he done safeguarding and first aid training? They would really be the minimums to be involved with children in any sport.

Yes, this is a major safeguarding fail by the club. Yes, the parent in question is a lousy parent (didn’t stay as expected, late, other things the OP has mentioned. The kid may be a brat but doesn’t deserve the blame here.

1. Unspoken rules aren’t worth the paper they are written on.

1. Your DH is a coach of this club, even if he isn’t one of the ‘major’ ones. He is still liable. Get that through his head now before something far worse happens and the blame falls on him.

3a. The club should send out two emails IMMEDIATELY. The first to the entire membership saying that there has been a safeguarding fail in that a child left the club unaccompanied (that language takes some of the pressure off the club) and that they urgently need to confirm the following rules for participation - parents must stay, children must be signed in and out. From a club PR perspective, it will be important to get the other parents onside about this (they all seem to be present at the activity anyway) so that the other parents seem bad/unreasonable and are less likely to escalate things in the face of peer pressure from other parents.

3b. The second email to the parents (probably in response to an email they have already sent to the safeguarding lead) with an apology that this ever happened and a promise it will never happen again because they are taking the following steps eg a parent or guardian must be on site at all times.

The parents may have failed in parenting but the club (and you DH) has failed in safeguarding. You can’t do much about the parenting but you/your DH MUST do something about the safeguarding standards.

The easy answer would be to have a condition of attending that the child is accompanied by an adult (ie they stay during the activity).

This is totally the clubs fault.
Despite any bad parenting on this occasion, people can get held up and are unavoidably late some times.

If it's an 'unwritten rule' that parents stay, not everyone will know this rule, so may leave.
The club need to have procedures in place to let all parents know this rule, or if not, have something safe in place for the times that parents are late.

It appears to be very shoddily run, and the leaders need to sit down and rethink the whole set up to make it safe

I worked in this area and still volunteer in sports governance.

First and foremost parents need to be proactive about finding out information on groups/clubs they send their kids to. What is the point in demanding safeguarding policies/practices after a serious incident like this? Why didn't the parents reassure themselves before?

Secondly, there is no such thing as an unofficial/informal club if they are taking money and acting in loco parentis. They need urgent advice from their national governing body or Sport England (if they are in England). I agree with others that the club needs to stop operating until they have got their safeguarding and welfare standards and practices sorted.

Please tell me the volunteers are at least DBS checked??

Also, so much of your posts focus on the behaviour of a nine year old kid. Massively unacceptable OP. Like if he was abducted or run over it would be partially his own fault. He's 9 fgs.

Both parents and club are at fault

Club - must have a clear safe guarding procedure

Parents - shouldn't have been late, their child is notorious for bad behaviour and they should always be prepared to get him on time for this very reason. It's cheeky of them to expect the coaches to have to deal with this whilst they rocked up late!

Ultimately though, the club need to sort their act out massively, I believe they will be held responsible if this happens again and something happens to a child.

@Paq

Also, so much of your posts focus on the behaviour of a nine year old kid. Massively unacceptable OP. Like if he was abducted or run over it would be partially his own fault. He's 9 fgs.

I blame the child for wondering off and lying to his parents that he was left alone and everyone had gone so he walked home. Rather than the fact he chose to wonder off home without telling anyone and could have chosen to stay with the coaches until his parents turned up.

My child is 9 also and I questioned him on what he would have done in this situation and he was shocked when I mentioned that he should not try and walk home. Like that was a given. He knew exactly what to do if we weren't there and offered sensible and safe decisions.

But as I have said several times I also recognise the club should have better safe guarding in place and if this isn't sorted I will be emailing the child protection officer. It's a big national club in fact, on further investigation on their website. They should have much stricter policies. I have asked what their policy is.

@DifficultBloodyWoman

Yes, this is a major safeguarding fail by the club. Yes, the parent in question is a lousy parent (didn’t stay as expected, late, other things the OP has mentioned. The kid may be a brat but doesn’t deserve the blame here.

1. Unspoken rules aren’t worth the paper they are written on.

1. Your DH is a coach of this club, even if he isn’t one of the ‘major’ ones. He is still liable. Get that through his head now before something far worse happens and the blame falls on him.

3a. The club should send out two emails IMMEDIATELY. The first to the entire membership saying that there has been a safeguarding fail in that a child left the club unaccompanied (that language takes some of the pressure off the club) and that they urgently need to confirm the following rules for participation - parents must stay, children must be signed in and out. From a club PR perspective, it will be important to get the other parents onside about this (they all seem to be present at the activity anyway) so that the other parents seem bad/unreasonable and are less likely to escalate things in the face of peer pressure from other parents.

3b. The second email to the parents (probably in response to an email they have already sent to the safeguarding lead) with an apology that this ever happened and a promise it will never happen again because they are taking the following steps eg a parent or guardian must be on site at all times.

The parents may have failed in parenting but the club (and you DH) has failed in safeguarding. You can’t do much about the parenting but you/your DH MUST do something about the safeguarding standards.

Thanks. I have screenshot your post for the wording.

@Graphista

It doesn't matter that it's a voluntary group it's an organisation that involves children and should even just morally be following guidance on safeguarding imo

How is the group organised how are costs paid for?

Membership of what? Is it a team a charity? Are they affiliated with a larger body like an FA club?

This sounds SO badly run and frankly I wonder about all the other things like public liability insurance?

I have SO many questions!

If something HAD happened to the child - either during coaching or on this walk home I'm thinking the coaches could be sued or even face criminal charges

It sounds far to big an entity to truly be informal legally speaking!

Are these volunteers all DBS checked?

This is one of my MANY questions!

Seriously with all the revelations in recent years of abuse within these kind of organisations wtf are the coaches thinking?!

I'm with pps saying the club needs to cease occurring until all of this kinda stuff is properly sorted!

This sounds like the PERFECT stalking ground for predators to be quite honest!

I was involved in volunteer youth roles for many years - scouts, guides, youth clubs, d of e, sports clubs - it's really not on to run something like this for kids and NOT have proper organisation

As it's a sport are the coaches qualified so they're not giving guidance that could lead to injury?

Have health and safety assessments been made?

Are the coaches insured?

Who has access to and manages the money, are there procedures in place to prevent the possibility of embezzlement etc? Potentially there are vat and other taxation issues

Are the coaches dbs (or equivalent) background checked?

Have they even had safeguarding training at all - this is as much to protect them from malicious allegations as anything else!

No, my DH wasn't. But the kids are never left alone with the kids. Parents always watching nearby.

No dbs checks?! What the hell?! This organisation is playing with fire!

"Parents always watching nearby"

1 grooming happens WITH parents present

2 abuse can happen WITH parents present

3 clearly not "always" as these parents weren't!

4 leaves coaches WIDE open to malicious allegations, blackmail, civil and criminal actions etc

The organisation your dh is coaching for are unutterably irresponsible and frankly STUPID!

The issue is there are no rules?

Exactly!

This is a disaster waiting to happen!

While dbs not a legal requirement (which I was shocked to find!) I think it's extremely foolish with your description of the setup for this group NOT to do this!

I would not allow ANY child of mine to be part of such a haphazard, irresponsible and disorganised group like this!

The parent would take them. but as has already been established the coaches don't even know if the parents are there!

Are the kids changing clothes at any point while there?

What exactly is the membership fee paying for? It certainly isn't qualified trained and responsible supervision!

I can't think of any sport that allows such lax set ups

I don't think any in the uk do now! There's been so much scandal around coaches etc they daren't!

Sounds like a peodophiles dream
Yep!

Ask your dh if continuing to volunteer for this organisation is worth his being vulnerable to being sued (possibly for £100,000's), accused of abuse or neglect, or even facing a criminal trial?! or losing your kids?!

The club - and you and dh - were very LUCKY nothing awful happened!

How much IS your house worth? Does you or your dh's job require a clean slate legally both civilly and criminally? What about your mortgage?

I'm betting these coaches/this club ALSO don't know each child's relevant medical history allergies etc? And clearly don't have in case of emergency contacts or their Drs details?

Shambles DANGEROUS shambles

dH answer is he doesn't want to get involved or point this out

But he IS involved by being a coach

There is an email address and name for the person who is in charge of safeguarding

Wow! They want sacking for starters!

They have already managed to annoy the coaches and the child has had to be talked to about his behaviour several times already.

Largely irrelevant but quite honestly I can't imagine the parents sending their children to such a poorly run club are exactly the most responsible types themselves - unless they've been VERY misled!

However it’s completely understood by parents that this is a volunteer run, fun activity for kids. It is NOT childcare.

Doesn't matter, legally they're liable if anything happens to the kids.

but they do not have any legal responsibility over children. yes they do actually

Every adult working with children or vulnerable adults even in a voluntary capacity has a LEGAL duty of care to them.

That is the law certainly in England wales and Scotland not sure about Northern Ireland but I imagine true there too.

Pps may disagree that volunteers should be responsible but the fact is legally they are!

I'm genuinely horrified and this is one of those threads I actually HOPE (but fear isn't) is false. Or that ops dhs understanding of various matters is wrong - though if genuine then I think the fact that ops dh hasn't had a dbs check screams irresponsible management of the club!

I don't know the answer to most of your questions. Speaking to DH the coaches have been CRB checked but no safeguarding talk. It says on the documents the head coach has it and other coaches are strongly recommended to take part and it will be paid for. The main coaches are all qualified coaches. They are things about permission to treat injuries etc. We are in the UK. He says actually parents leave the kids all the time. I don't usually go so didn't know this.

It turns out it is a much bigger club than I thought. They are part of the FA. They have several safeguarding/photography/coaches conduct documentation on their website. Some of which were sent to parents as part of the contract we had to sign. I can see nothing on any document about sign in/out procedures or parents staying to supervise.

This is a massive hole they need to cover. I am surprised at this given their size. Surely this isn't the first time something like this has happened in such a large national club.

So, it sounds like all the processes are in place for the national club, but this is just a case of the local club not following them.

I suspect the coaches who were working/volunteers that day will be in some amount of trouble here.
Sorry OP, but I think your OH is in for a tough time.

However, the national club will have a duty to ensure all their staff and volunteers are properly trained, and if your OH hasn't been, that is a the clubs fault, not his.

Ah OK -- it sounds as if the setup is (supposed to be) more formalised than you thought. It sounds as if there are some holes in how they operate though.

I would have thought coaches who coach occasionally (such as your DH) would be supposed to be DBS checked and also possibly safeguarding trained. And it sounds as if a signing in and out or parent supervision policy needs to be put in place and adhered to.

The FA (or the local branch of it) should be able to advise the club on what to do to rectify things and I would hope the club gets onto it sharpish.

At my DS rugby club parent/carer have to be on pitchside up to U12. After that it is deemed the parents responsibility to ensure their child is supervised before and after the scheduled time.

I want to contact the safeguarding person about this and ask what the procedures are. However, I don't want them to know my personal details and I can't complete the email form without putting an email address in. Surely this alone shouldn't be the case. What if I was calling a coach out for something more sinister.

It turns out it is a much bigger club than I thought. They are part of the FA. They have several safeguarding/photography/coaches conduct documentation on their website. Some of which were sent to parents as part of the contract we had to sign. I can see nothing on any document about sign in/out procedures or parents staying to supervise.

You know those appallingly run clubs that you hear about - the ones that ignore safeguarding, put children in danger and think that everything is ok because Steve is a nice guy and Bobby once put a plaster on someone so first aid is sorted and no-one can work out how it all went so wrong? This is one of those clubs.

People are breaking rules and cutting corners left right and centre. When that happens risks are magnified so much for someone unsavoury to slip through the net (including financially so - how lax are their accounting procedures? A local boys club years ago had zero paperwork and in the end they reckoned the treasurer took around £8k over a couple of years).

My child is 9 also and I questioned him on what he would have done in this situation and he was shocked when I mentioned that he should not try and walk home. Like that was a given. He knew exactly what to do if we weren't there and offered sensible and safe decisions.

The reason policies are needed though is because children are unpredictable.

How many times in his life have you said “I can’t believe he did that!”? Many I bet. Probably over little things. But kids sometimes do “I can’t believe they did that!” over big things. Especially when it’s unexpected big things - we all know how we’d expect our kids to react in that situation, but if they’ve never been in it we don’t actually know how they’d react.

Did he leave because he’s a naughty child and just thought “fuck it”?
Or did he leave because he thought “mum/dad will be here soon so I’ll just meet them part way down the path and then they’ll not get in trouble from coaches”?
Or did he leave because the remaining adults weren’t ones he felt he could talk to? Or did he leave because he was embarrassed that his parents were late and he didn’t want to admit that?

@sparkycats

I want to contact the safeguarding person about this and ask what the procedures are. However, I don't want them to know my personal details and I can't complete the email form without putting an email address in. Surely this alone shouldn't be the case. What if I was calling a coach out for something more sinister.

If it was more sinister than that and you needed it to be anonymous then you’d go above them. They should have given you details of where the next step is - that should always be detailed in case it’s the safeguarding lead, or someone particularly close to them, that you are reporting.

Club and coaches need urgent safeguarding training and to put proper procedures in place to prevent this happening again

I volunteer in a childrens activity group and all leaders are required to have safe guarding training. We make sure all children are collected before we leave unless we’ve been told by the parent that they’re happy for their child to walk home alone. We’ve occassionally walked a child home ourselves (2 adults present) if the child says they’re allowed but we haven’t heard it from the parent.

Being volunteers is no excuse. If they want all parents to stay and be responsible for their own kids then they need to make that explicit to all parents. If they allow parents to leave then they’re responsible for those kids and need to make sure they’re handed back to a parent at the end even if that means staying late. If they don’t want that responsibility then they shouldn’t be running a kids activity.

It’s super annoying when parents are late. Especially as it’s frequently the same ones repeatedly. And child shouldn’t have lied. But that doesn’t mean it’s not the coaches responsibility

What if I was calling a coach out for something more sinister doing this anonymously wouldn't be a lot of use.
How could anyone investigate vague claims from an anonymous person?