All sports have a responsibility to ensure they provide a safe and fun environment for children and young people. Through the Every Child Matters: Change for Children programme, the government makes it very clear that sport has to put safeguards in place. Football, along with other sports such as cricket, rugby and swimming - to name but a few - believe the best way to do this is to appoint a Welfare Officer.

Football accepts it has a clear responsibility towards young people so appointing a Welfare Officer is imperative. Making sure everyone knows how to report concerns about a child’s welfare is essential. Knowing how to recognise and deal with poor practice issues is vital.

What does a Welfare Officer do?
Welfare Officers have two key roles:

Be informed and aware of the league or club’s responsibilities when running football activities for children and young people. Inc: ensuring these responsibilities are well understood by others * developing best practice processes. Helping league and club personnel understand their ‘duty of care’ towards children and young people. Inc: ensuring all relevant people complete The FA’s ‘Safeguarding Children’ training programme * helping to make sure trips away are organised properly * managing the roll out of a FA CRB/DBS check.

Should you have any concerns or require any further information Cradley Town DC’s appointed Welfare Officer's details are as followed:

Mrs. Kerry Danks - FA Accredited [Lead] Child Welfare Officer [CWO] and DBS Verifier.

Tel: 0121 532 6518
Mobile: 07882 944872
Email: kerrydanks@aol.com

Further information or support can be found on The FA website: www.thefa.com

Our County Designated Safeguarding Lead and Designated Safeguarding Officer and RESPECT Lead is: Sarah Willis

Contacted via email on:
Email: Safeguarding@BirminghamFA.com
Mobile: 07791 120829

CEOP - Advice, Help Centre or make a CEOP report

The NCA's CEOP Command (formerly the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre) works with child protection partners across the UK and overseas to identify the main threats to children and coordinates activity against these threats to bring offenders to account. We protect children from harm online and offline, directly through NCA led operations and in partnership with local and international agencies.

The following websites below provide more information and advice for CEOP Advice, Help Centre or to make a CEOP Report.

Copy and paste the links into your search bar. Direct links to the websites can also be found on our "Information Page" under "Links"

www.ceop.police.co.uk
www.thinkuknow how.co.uk
www.childline.org.uk

More information on the above links can also be found on The FA website: www.thefa.com