Perthshire Parkour’s Safeguarding Policy

Perthshire Parkour adheres to the safeguarding policies and guidelines of Parkour UK.

Please report any potential matters relating to safeguarding children to Perthshire Parkour by phone 07555 457407 or email perthshireparkour@gmail.com.

This includes any concerns about the welfare of children or vulnerable adults either within parkour/freerunning or outside of parkour/freerunning and any concern over adult behaviour related to the welfare of children including those away from the sport that involve member organisations and/or participants.

Summary

Perthshire Parkour regards the safeguarding and welfare of everyone, and specifically children (under the age of 18) and vulnerable adults, to be of paramount importance.

Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility, please ensure that you report any concerns and put good practice into effect. Act on your concerns but it is not your responsibility or that of volunteers, coaches or parents to investigate or decide if abuse is occurring, it is the responsibility of safeguarding experts.

All members of the workforce have, by joining Perthshire Parkour, agreed to abide by the Perthshire Parkour Safeguarding Policy & Procedures. Please contact Perthshire Parkour if you require a copy of the full Safeguarding Policy.

Good practice is built around the following framework:

1. All coaches must have attended safeguarding training to understand how to recognise abuse or potential issues.
2. Providing parkour/freerunning activities and events that are appropriate to the participant’s age and ability.
3. Adults avoid 1-on-1 situations with those under 18 years.
4. Taking care when recruiting people who will work with children and vulnerable adults, this includes volunteers.
5. Checking and monitoring all workforce in positions of trust that have regular and frequent contact with children and/or vulnerable adults.
6. Adults being aware of the risks to participants and understanding their responsibility to safeguard them.
7. Reporting concerns – not investigating them any more than necessary to confirm a concern exists.

Responding to a safeguarding concern or a disclosure

1. Firstly, ensure the safety of the person – if the person needs immediate medical treatment, take the person to hospital or call an ambulance, inform medics of your concerns and ensure they are aware it may be a safeguarding issue.
2. Make a judgement about whether your concern is sufficient to cause you to take immediate action, this may be to protect the person from potential harm or to report your concern while the state of the person is time sensitive and may normalise if time is wasted – for example bruising will subside over a period of time. If you need advice contact your Welfare Officer.
3. Where concerns are urgent, refer immediately to Children’s Social Care/Police and send a copy of the Incident Report form to both them and Perthshire Parkour within 24 hours.
4. Note down or record what has been said to you or what you have seen. Date and time your note and try to be as factually accurate as you can. This will help when producing an Incident Report.
5. Lastly, if you have any concern at all you must report concerns to Perthshire Parkour who will complete the Perthshire Parkour Incident Report form.

If a person informs you directly that they, or another person, is concerned about someone’s behaviour towards them:

• Be calm – do not panic and do not allow your shock or distaste to show.
• Tell the person that they are not to blame and that they were right to tell.
• Take what the person says seriously, recognising the difficulties inherent in interpreting what is said by a person who has a speech impairment and/or differences in language.
• Only ask questions to clarify and confirm your concern and to have sufficient information to act – do not ‘investigate’ any further.
• Reassure the person but do not make promises of confidentiality which might not be feasible in light of subsequent developments – make no promises and do not agree to keep secrets.
• Follow the procedures to report the concern – do not approach the alleged abuser.
• Time is of the essence, do not wait, and act as a matter of urgency.

Making an Incident Report

If the incident or allegation is serious you should report it immediately to the police or social care.

Ideally the subsequent report should be made utilising the Perthshire Parkour Incident Report Form and should include:

• Details of the person – e.g: age/date of birth, address, race, gender and ethnic origin.
• Details of the facts of the allegations or any observations.
• A description of any visible bruising, other injuries or emotional distress.
• The persons’ account, if it can be given, of what happened and how any bruising or other injuries occurred.
• Witnesses to the incident(s).
• Any times, dates or other relevant information.
• A clear distinction between what is fact, opinion or hearsay.
• A signature, time and date on the report.
• Remember you must not investigate the allegation.

Working with participants and coaching ratios

There must always be two or more adults to supervise and work with any group.

Coaching ratios are 1:15 indoor and 1:8 outdoors.

Finding volunteers for positions of trust

Any workforce responsible for caring for children (training, driving, coaching etc) should be interviewed, the Recruiting Policy available on our website includes guidelines.

The law varies across the UK but in general requires that a Disclosure and Barring Service Check (or equivalent in Scotland & Northern Ireland) should be carried out if:

• They are working with children and/or vulnerable adults in isolation from other adults, and their contact with the child or children is:
  • Once per week or more, or
  • 4 or more days in each 30-day period, or
  • Any overnight supervision between 2am and 6am

The full process can be found here but if they do not meet the criteria, a check is not permissible by law.

Using Social Media

Social Media Guidelines are available in the Policy Booklet; good practice for member organisations and workforce includes:

• Manage your social media – workforce will need to be trained to recognise signs of bullying and grooming.
• If in a position of trust with a child and/or vulnerable adult, don’t accept their ‘friend’ requests or communicate via social media. This should be managed via the official social media accounts of the member organisation such as their Facebook page.
• If you need to use social media with anyone under 18, gain permission from parents/carers; always copy another colleague, welfare officer or moderator into the message/communication.
• Don’t give out or ask for personal information such as address, age, mobile number, your current location etc…
• If you are worried about any person, use your organisation’s reporting procedure and/or report your concerns to ceop.police.uk.

Guidance for children is available on the website at www.thinkuknow.co.uk or www.ceop.police.uk.

Transporting children

Organisations and coaches should encourage parents to make private arrangements to transport children and/or vulnerable adults. Parents normally ‘risk assess’ for their children and when parents arrange transport it is their responsibility to keep the member organisation or workforce aware for various legal responsibilities.

Upon late collection, the workforce should:

• Attempt to contact the parent/carer or alternative contact name/number.
• Wait with the child and/or vulnerable adult at the agreed collection point – with another adult if at all possible.

Do not:

• Travel in a situation that puts you in a 1-to-1 position with a child and/or vulnerable adult.
• Take the child and/or vulnerable adult to their home or to any other location.
• Ask the child and/or vulnerable adult to wait in a vehicle or venue with you alone.

Send the child and/or vulnerable adult home with another person without parental permission.

Taking of pictures and videos at activities and events

We want people to take pictures, but we need to safeguard children and/or vulnerable adults from their images being misused.

To find a pragmatic solution cameras are categorised:

1. Smartphones and small cameras that do not have zoom lenses attached.
2. Digital SLR cameras and compact camera systems that either have zoom lenses or to which zoom lenses can be attached; used by professional photographers as well as enthusiasts.

Suspicious behaviour by a person using a smartphone camera may be the way in which we identify people that should be challenged but in general we are unlikely to be able to police such cameras.

People using Digital SLR, compact cameras with zoom capacity or video cameras should register with the event organiser. The organiser should:

• Issue any photographer with registration which must be worn at all times.
• Talk with the photographer about how they will avoid taking images of children and/or vulnerable adults without consent; most photographers are experienced in dealing with this situation.
• Inform the photographer they must not take children away for 1-to-1 sessions without consent and a chaperone.

Good practice about the use of cameras at events includes:

• Publishing notices regarding the safe use of cameras at events, prominently in event programmes and at significant places at the event.The recommended wording is:

 ‘In line with the policies of [INSERT ORGANISATION], the organisers of this event request that any person wishing to take photos or video of children and/or vulnerable adults should register their details with the event organiser before taking any such photos or videos. The event organisers reserve the right to ask people to refrain from taking photos or videos and may, if such warnings are ignored, refer the matter to the police. If anybody has concerns regarding the misuse of camera equipment, they should report it to the event organiser immediately.’

• Inform participants and carers that a photographer will be at an event.
• Parents/carers must provide written, informed consent for a child’s images to be taken and used.
• Images using Digital SLR should only be taken by authorised, registered persons.

Workforce must challenge any individual about whom concern has been reported regarding the misuse of camera equipment:

1. Approach the person and ask who they are, do they have permission; inform them of the concern raised.
2. Make the person aware they should have registered with the organiser to use their equipment; advise them of the protocol.
3. Make the person aware that if they are seen to be doing anything untoward, they will be reported to the Police.

All such concerns must be recorded in the same manner as any other incident or safeguarding concern and reported to the event organiser who will inform the Welfare Officer. Any serious concern should be reported to the police.

Videoing as a coaching aid: workforce may use a video for coaching purposes. The coach will make sure that any children and their parents/carers have given written consent and that they understand it is part of the coaching programme.

Using images of children

• Gain consent by asking for written permission from the people, (parents/carers in the case of children), to take and use their image and explain what the image will be used for. A consent form is the best way of achieving this.
• If a child is named, avoid using their image.
• If an image is used, avoid naming the child and never publish personal details: email addresses, telephone numbers, addresses etc.
• Only use images of adult participants in suitable dress to reduce the risk of inappropriate use.

Ensure that any images used reflect positive aspects of participant involvement in parkour/freerunning.