YSF Safeguarding and Welfare News - March 2025
Welcome to our March newsletter.
Please pass this newsletter on to your Club Welfare Officer and safeguarding staff.
Sport Welfare OfficersSelf-Assessment and AuditsSafeguarding Partners and Other ContactsTraining
Welcome to the March newsletter
Over the last few months, the Sport Welfare Officer team across England have been out and about representing the network at forums and events. It’s great that National Governing Bodies are inviting us to engage with their members, speak about our work and promote good safeguarding and welfare practice.
This weekend our North Yorkshire Sport colleague, Laura Harris, was at the England Women’s Six Nations game speaking to coaches, volunteers and participants about welfare. Meanwhile our East Midlands Sport Welfare colleagues were at the Table Tennis England National Championships raising awareness of safeguarding.
If you’ve got a forthcoming event and would like us to attend please get in touch. Douglas, Measha and Nicola would love to come and speak with people about safe sport.
Sport Welfare Connect – 2 April
We’re really excited about our next Sport Welfare Connect networking event. The theme this time is Mental Health, and we’re delighted to have Papyrus, the national charity for prevention of suicide in young people, speaking with us.
We’ll be looking at mental health services and resources available across Yorkshire and the Humber, such as Leeds Mind Suicide Bereavement Service. Their service is available to support those who have been bereaved or affected by suicide in West Yorkshire. Some young people who have used the service were involved in putting together this video to explain how it helped them.
These sessions are primarily for Club Welfare Officers but are also open to anyone with an interest in safeguarding and welfare within sport and physical activity. They’re free of charge and take place online, via Microsoft Teams.
Our 2 April session takes place from 6pm to 7.30pm and you can book a place here.
Sport For Good – West Yorkshire
Sport for Good is a new programme for people who run sports clubs and organisations in West Yorkshire to increase the resilience, engagement, sustainability and diversity of your organisation. Tackling the challenges that so many clubs are facing and supporting you to thrive! All support is free for West Yorkshire based clubs.
Support is available through workshops and mentoring on the following subjects; Bid writing and fundraising, Equality, diversity and inclusion, Sustainable practices, Volunteering, Governance and leadership, Engaging communities and local partnerships, Revenue diversification, Inclusive marketing and Membership development.
Courses are being delivered across every West Yorkshire district, please follow each district link to find courses local to you.
Bradford Calderdale Kirklees Leeds Wakefield
Places are limited so please sign up as soon as possible and clubs can sign up to as many workshops as they'd find useful
Club of Sanctuary
Following the Time for Action on Racism in Sport event which took place in November, the Yorkshire and Humber Anti-Racism in Sport Group put on an event for clubs and activity providers who wanted more information on welcoming refugees and people seeking asylum. This took place online in February and we were delighted to have Wan Abdullah and Claire ‘Blue’ Graham from Holbeck Moor FC Women’s Team, and Rose McCarthy from City of Sanctuary, to speak with us.
Claire spoke about an ambition to have a network of clubs and organisations who are knowledgeable and welcoming to those seeking asylum and refugees. Rose explained that the City of Sanctuary movement was started in Sheffield in 2007 and there are now over 120 groups across the UK, with many of these being in Yorkshire. It’s about sharing good practice and ideas with others.
The first step is to think about how to welcome people to your club. If you do want to be awarded Club of Sanctuary status, make contact with your local City of Sanctuary. You can also approach refugee support groups in your area.
Holbeck Moor FC Women’s Team was set up with an understanding that the barriers that people seeking asylum face are barriers that are common to other groups of people, so if they could overcome those then the team would be accessible to everyone. These issues include things like paying for kit, equipment, travel, and childcare, as well as differences in culture or language. People may have also experienced trauma and have anxiety or post-traumatic stress.
Some of the things that Holbeck Moor have done to enable participants to attend sessions include buying scratch-off bus tickets for single day use, so that the participant can take it away at one session and use it to come to the next session. They’ve also sought out charities that donate kit and have applied for funding from other organisations. They’ve been able to pay for a creche for a couple of hours to enable single mothers to bring their children and attend.
To find out more about being an accessible club, or being a Club of Sanctuary, you can contact Claire at holbeckmoorfc@slunglow.org or Rose at rose@uk.cityofsanctuary.org. You can also speak to your local Sport Welfare Officer.
Useful resources
The Ann Craft Trust have put together a toolkit for sport clubs and activity providers to support adults with their mental health. You can find it here.
Meet your Sport Welfare team
Nicola Holmes
Senior Sport Welfare Officer
07714 733650
nicola.holmes@yorkshiresport.org
Measha Harris
Sport Welfare Officer for West Yorkshire
07714 733636
measha.harris@yorkshiresport.org
Douglas Blackwood
Sport Welfare Officer for South Yorkshire
07702 557007
douglas.blackwood@yorkshiresport.org
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