News
Celebrating our new Club Welfare Officers
23/11/2022 00:00, In Blog / Club Notice Board / Cross Country /
Since June, Welsh Athletics with the support of its clubs, have embarked on a journey to upskill and train all Club Welfare Officers [CWOs] volunteering in our sport up and down the country.
From July to October, over 160 Club Welfare Officers, from over 100 clubs attented a Time 2 Listen course. The Time 2 Listen course is accredited by UKA. Our CWOs have also completed an online athletics specific safeguarding module and hold valid UKA DBS.
We’re delighted that our volunteers are leading the way in safeguarding requirements and are contributing to making our sport as safe as possible for all that participate.
In addition, we are now sending out regular safeguarding newsletters to our CWO’s, and hosting ‘catch up’ sessions with Regional Welfare Officers. These will be hosted by Welsh Athletics’ Safeguarding Lead, Carl Williams.
Carl Williams added,
To ensure all participants in our sport are safe, we must upskill our coaches, staff, clubs, and volunteers in safeguarding.
Welsh Athletics work closely with the CPSU & Ann Craft Trust, who are the lead agencies in both children and adults safeguarding in sport. We cannot stand still with safeguarding, therefore we must be compliant with our safeguarding requirements.
Since 2020 and the independent review of UK Athletics, we have pushed on to make sure we can be the best we can be. This year, all Welsh Athletics staff have been trained in 'Safeguarding Children and Adults at risk'.
I was also pleased that our annual review of Welsh Athletics by the CPSU went extremely well and we received praise for all the great work that has been done in safeguarding.
Feedback from one of our CWO’s who attended the Time to listen course in October;
I would just like to thank you for running the course this evening. You made it interesting and enjoyable, and as a novice in this field, I wasn't made to feel out of my depth at any time, and hope that I contributed a little to the conversations.
I now feel a lot more confident in taking on the role of Female Welfare Officer for my club, and I’m especially happy to know who to contact when needed, which I hope I will not ever have to use. Thanks again for putting on a well-paced interesting course.
Feedback from our North Wales Regional Welfare Officer;
Just completed the Time to Listen course, it was very good and the Tutor was great.
New courses are in place to help our CWO's both in position and our new volunteers. There will be further courses in January.
If you have any safeguarding queries, please get in touch with, carl.williams@welshathletics.org