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SAFEGUARDING MESSAGE TO CLUBS

A reminder to affiliated clubs of their legal obligations and responsibilities to check people working as coaches (by using the BF Coaches Register) and the potential consequences if they fail to perform the mandatory checks. 

In recent months British Fencing (BF) has had to make an increasing number of referrals to the police around safeguarding matters.

Our work to keep our sport safe is made significantly harder where clubs have not undertaken basic safeguarding checks on their coaches, which is not just a contravention of BF’s policies, it also against the law.

As a reminder, all BF Affiliated Clubs are required to use Registered Coaches, a list of which are found on the BF Coaches Register. This register is the first place a club should be checking before allowing a person to coach.

(For any parent reading this, you can also help us keep our sport safe by checking that your child’s fencing coach is registered.)

There are seven requirements to be a Registered Coach.  These are:

  • Current Membership of British Fencing
  • Hold a Recognised Coaching Qualification
  • Have Criminal Records Check (DBS, Access NI, PVG)
  • Have a current First Aid Training certificate
  • Attended approved Safeguarding Training in the last three years
  • Agreed to the Code of Conduct
  • Created a Coaches Profile

Clubs are reminded that they are breaking the law if they deploy a coach to work with U18’s if they do not have a DBS/PVG/Access NI in place.  One club failing to do this is one club too many.

Clubs are reminded that these checks are a legal requirement, and your club insurance is invalidated if you do not ensure that all your coaches have a relevant criminal record check in place.

Deploying registered coaches is part of a wider set of safeguarding requirements that affiliated clubs are expected to meet. Clubs that meet the affiliation requirements have the comfort of knowing that they are insured by BF and able to take advantage of the benefits of being affiliated.

These requirements include:

  • All coaches used by the club are on the coach register
  • All coaches are listed your club website
  • Your club welfare officer(s) are on the Welfare Officer Register
  • All welfare officers are listed on your club website and on your club Sport:80 account
  • Your club has its safeguarding procedures available on the club website

BF has produced this guide to support you in checking your club’s compliance requirements.

If you are not sure about any elements identified above, please contact membershipenquiries@britishfencing.com as soon as possible and we will do our best to help you. We would always rather you ask than put any person at risk by inaction.

Where we are alerted to safeguarding concerns (including where matters are referred to the Police) and it is found that clubs failed to meet minimum safeguarding requirements, British Fencing will take disciplinary action.

Where clubs are found to be currently failing to meet minimum safeguarding requirements and no action plan is in place to address the gaps, clubs will be disaffiliated.