We have more than 10,000 reasons to be proud of our Safeguarding and Protecting Children Online Classroom… and counting. For that is the number of learners who have taken our virtual course during the pandemic – in addition to nearly half a million people who have been through UK Coaching’s face-to-face safeguarding workshop during the past 24 years.
And UK Coaching is hugely grateful to those organisations who, by becoming UK Coaching Licensed Partners, deliver UK Coaching safeguarding courses using their own tutors.
British Triathlon was the first National Governing Body to orientate its tutors to deliver our online classroom, further swelling the number of learners who have benefitted from safeguarding training at this pivotal time for the sport and physical activity sector, and for the nation as a whole.
It is a shining example of an organisation that has acted proactively to ensure its coaching workforce has remained upskilled during the height of the pandemic, by recognising online training as a sustainable alternative to face-to-face learning.
We posed some focused questions to British Triathlon’s CEO Andy Salmon about the paramount importance of safeguarding training.
British Triathlon implemented improvements to its safeguarding standards from January 2021 and all registered coaches need to ensure they have completed UK Coaching’s Safeguarding & Protecting Children or Safeguarding Adults training. What were the reasons behind this decision?
“We are constantly reviewing our standards and, during one of the reviews, we highlighted that we wanted to make improvements to our standards, raising awareness and learning amongst our workforce. We want everyone involved in our sport to have a safe and enjoyable experience and safeguarding is a fundamental building block in ensuring that.