Launched last year in partnership with Learning Nexus – a renowned expert in the provision of digital learning – the basketball specific course was created to ensure that the workforce, voluntary or otherwise, were fully supported to keep the sport safe, fun and inclusive.
The Whyte Review, commissioned by Sport England and UK Sport in the wake of high-profile allegations of athlete mistreatment in British Gymnastics, recommended that mandatory safeguarding courses be more relevant to individual sports and was something BE's Senior Safeguarding Specialist Lois Harrison wanted to achieve for basketball.
“I am really happy about this,” said Harrison.
“When I first started at Basketball England, one of my priorities was to create basketball specific educational packages.
“The recommendations in the Whyte Review talk about the education of a governing body’s workforce and its volunteers being one of the biggest priorities.
“Most people have done a general safeguarding qualification, sometimes completed online in a very short space of time, but they do not realise they need more training than that provides. I mandated for developing our own materials and to deliver our own training because it's important that the training people receive is for the sector that they are working in.”
The BE safeguarding learning package also includes a Club Welfare Officer (CWO) course, meaning that there is an additional layer of training for that very specific role, which can involve working with social services.
Currently, the next course to be developed for the learning platform ahead of next season will be Safeguarding Adults.
"Safeguarding adults can be complex due to the additional vulnerabilities that can exist and the issues around consent. It is important that all of our members involved in working or volunteering with adults understand the responsibilities around this," Harrison added.
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