Safeguarding is at the heart of junior football. Following high-profile failures in the past, the Football Association rightly now ensures that at both grass roots and professional football clubs, safeguarding is the number one priority. As part of our ongoing FA accreditation, Moor Mead FC is therefore pleased to fully support the FA’s ongoing Play Safe campaign.
All youth clubs have club welfare officers, responsible for ensuring that clubs have in place, and are following, the policies and processes necessary to meet safeguarding responsibilities. As well as ensuring all Moor Mead coaches are subject to checks by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), this means having and following a safeguarding policy, as well as other policies covering equality, anti-bullying and dealing with complaints.
As a club, we are fully committed to ensuring a safe and fun and environment for all of our players at every age level. We are lucky to have a great set of players and parents who conduct themselves brilliantly; but no club or community is immune from the familial and societal risks that children and young people face both at home and outside them. Safeguarding, and ensuring that football is fun, safe and inclusive, is everybody’s responsibility, therefore as part of Play Safe, we are supporting the FA in encouraging all parents/carers to view this short FA course on safeguarding awareness. The course has been shaped by the experiences of the FA’s Survivor Support and Safeguarding Advisory Group who say that:
“It’s vitally important to us that every parent/carer understands they role they need to play in football. Taking this course can make a real difference – we are asking every parent/carer to commit to help ensure football is ever-safer.”
If you have a safeguarding concern relating to MMFC or a child involved with the club, please contact the MMFC Club Welfare Officer, Ellie Greenwood
Ellie Greenwood: - greenandgreenwood@hotmail.co.uk
If you are concerned that a child is in immediate danger, you should contact:
The Police on 999
The NSPCC 24-hour helpline on 0808 800 5000.
Achieving for children (LB Richmond): single point of access on 020 8547 5008 (8.00am-5.15pm, Monday to Thursday; 8.00am-5.00pm on Friday; or out of hours: 020 8770 5000.)
Respect programme and conduct
An important part of safeguarding in junior football is player and supporter conduct and MMFC fully supports the principles set out in the FA’s Respect programme.
We are extremely proud that our club coaches, players and spectators model the best possible behaviour at training and in their respective leagues; sadly, even at the youngest age groups, not all clubs can say the same and no club can avoid the tensions that unfortunately sometimes come with playing competitive football as children get older.
We have adopted the FA Respect campaign’s separate codes of conduct for players, coaches and spectators, which emphasise the ‘we only do positive’ ethos and the importance of enjoyment, fair play and respect for teammates, the opposition and referee/linesmen alike. All our club members (players, coaches, parent/carers, spectators or anyone otherwise connected with the club) are asked to uphold these standards at training and during games. We take our codes of conduct very seriously and will always take steps to address issues that could undermine the good reputation we have built up over the years.
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