Wimbledon RFC is fully committed to ensuring the wellbeing and safety of all young players who participate in activities organised by the club. It is recognised that all coaches, administrators and medical staff who undertake activities on behalf of the club acknowledge that they have a legal and moral responsibility to provide the highest standard of care to all young players and that all young players are treated in a fair and equitable way.

Policy on pitch-side childcare
To clarify the situation re childcare on Sundays: the club requires parents to stay pitch-side whilst your children are playing. We are not a drop-off club. Should you need to leave the club/pitch-side it is the parents' responsibility to nominate another parent to be responsible for your child(ren) whilst you are away. Any questions please refer to me, Sophie Castle, the club's lead Child Safeguarding Officer childprot@wmrfc.co.uk.

Safeguarding Children
We take the happiness of our players seriously and ask you to help us maintain the clubs ethos for fun, inclusiveness and fair play by being an active supporter. I would encourage all adults to set a good example when spectating, by applauding good play and effort on both sides.

How Wimbledon ensures the club is safe:
1. The club has elected me, Sophie Castle, as the Club Safeguarding Officer.

2. I am a member of the minis and youth executive committee and have a duty to ensure all club decisions give due regard to safeguarding issues.
3. I organise safeguarding training sessions at the club. Every volunteer is required to attend a briefing session in their first season. At least one person from each age group must attend the RFU ‘Play It Safe’ course.
4. All volunteers and parents must be familiar with, understand and comply with the RFU's Safeguarding Policy. Please read this and the club’s disciplinary policy. We fully subscribe to the RFU's core values which can be found on our website here: http://wmrfc.co.uk/rfucorevalues
5. I process all volunteers DBS (Disclosure and Barring Service) checks in line with both RFU and DBS policy. The DBS application must be in process/in possession before they can begin their role as Manager, Coach, First Aider or volunteer within the club. Therefore, if you are new to volunteering, or have a DBS check that is about to expire, then please contact me as soon as possible.
6. All volunteers, parents and carers have a duty to help identify any signs of harm and report them to me or the RFU Safeguarding team. If you have any concerns, please contact me. I’ll be at the club most Sundays, either on the sideline or in the clubhouse.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAVE A CONCERN
Sophie visits the club most Sundays. You’ll either find her roving between pitches or stationed in the clubhouse, please do come and say hello and have a chat. And remember if you have any child welfare concerns it's part of her role to help resolve them.
You can contact Sophie by e-mail via childprot@wmrfc.co.uk or 07970 212727.

INFORMATION IF YOU ARE GOING ON RUGBY TOUR WITH YOUR AGE GROUPS
I've attached two example docs - an itinerary and tour code of conduct doc and a risk assessment. Feel free to follow these approaches. Managers and/or head coaches need to send me your risk assessment form before touring, please could you also ensure you give me a summary of the itinerary, timings and planned activities so I can put the risk assessment into context (this is included as part of the Tour Itinerary and Conduct so if you use that doc you don’t need to repeat).

Please can we have enough time prior to tour to review as we need to fit them all in. Suggest at least 3 weeks before departure but preferably before that.

Any overseas tours will require more approvals.

INFORMATION YOU NEED TO BRING FOR A DBS CHECK

A larger, downloadable version of the DBS info is here. Link to full list of documents you can bring for a DBS check: https://www.gov.uk/criminal-record-check-documents