Sports Safeguarding
Culture Programme
Organisational culture has a critical role to play in making sport safer.
Whilst the culture of an organisation is influenced by everyone who works there, leaders have a significant role to play in developing and role modelling the culture and establishing agreed behaviours.
This programme supports you to understand your organisation’s culture and develop a bespoke action plan to strengthen it.
There are four steps, and it takes around one year to complete the programme. For it to be effective, it’s crucial that your senior leadership team is committed to the programme, and can take time throughout the year to reflect on what you are learning.
You can check that your organisation is eligible here.
We would like to acknowledge the inspiration we drew from the BOND: Developing and modelling a positive safeguarding culture: A tool for leaders when developing this tool.
Get Started
In this step you will learn more about what culture is, why it is so important for effective safeguarding, and the role leaders play in developing a safer culture.
In this step you will be guided through an audit of your current safeguarding practice in relation to governance, strategic planning, policies and procedures, training, partnerships, and communication. A bespoke action plan will be generated based on your responses, allowing you to take action to address any issues identified.
In this step, you will be introduced to the seven cultural characteristics that help organisations to be high performing and create a safer environment. You will be able to share a culture survey with everyone involved in your organisation, and will receive a bespoke report showing how different audiences within your organisation experience your culture, based on the survey findings.
In this step you will be able to access a set of guides that relate to each of the seven cultural characteristics that help organisations be high performing and create a safer environment. These guides will help you prioritise and plan your next steps to improve your organisational culture, based on the findings of the culture assessment.
There is also a range of resources to support you on the programme.
FAQs
The programme of activity covers a 1 year cycle.
We recommend you repeat the audit and survey annually to generate new priorities as part of an ongoing journey to build a safer culture.
These tools have been designed for any sports organisations that already has:
a. A safeguarding policy
b. An approach to assessing and addressing safeguarding risk
c. A code of conduct or ethics
d. A defined process for managing safeguarding concerns
e. Some level of safeguarding training for staff
f. A named person with responsibility for safeguarding (either stand alone or as part
of a wider role)
g. A Senior Leadership Team responsible for taking decisions on behalf of your
Organisation
If this isn’t your sports organisation, we recommend you start with the International Safeguards Self Audit.
These tools have been designed to support leaders in sports organisations to:
> Appreciate the role of culture in developing safer sport
> Understand the current state of play in their organisation in relation to:
- Safeguarding compliance
- Organisational culture
> Reflect on areas for growth or development
> Plan, implement, and review progress
Your answers will produce a bespoke action plan for you to use to implement immediate, short-term, and long-term strategies to build a safer and stronger culture.
Contact
Still got questions?
Email info@safeinsport.org