We in East Down Yacht Club (the Club) are committed to a practice which
protects children from harm.
Members, instructors, coaches and volunteers/helpers in the Club accept and
recognise their responsibilities under the Children (Northern Ireland) Order
1995 about safeguarding children and will endeavour to carry these out by:-
- Having an awareness of the issues which cause
children harm;
- Adopting child protection guidelines for
members, instructors, coaches and volunteers/helpers;
- Providing information about child protection
and good practice to the above and parents;
- Sharing information about concerns with
children, parents and others who need to know;
- Following carefully the procedures for the
recruitment and selection of instructors, coaches volunteers/helpers and
the management of the Club;
- Being involved in training;
- Keeping child protection policies under regular
review; and
- Providing information as required to the
Executive Committee of the Club and to the RYA (Northern Ireland Council).
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Code of conduct for members,
instructors, coaches and volunteer/helpers
These guidelines have been produced to help protect anyone working with young
people in East Down Yacht Club and should be followed at all times. If you have
any queries regarding these you should contact any member of the Executive
Committee or the persons responsible for Children Protection.
- Always be publicly open when working with the
younger person. Avoid situations where you and an individual younger
person are completely unobserved.
- If physical contact is necessary it should be
done openly. Care is needed as it is difficult to maintain hand positions
when providing manual support if the younger person is constantly moving.
Some parents are becoming increasingly sensitive about touching younger
persons and their view should always be carefully considered.
- Where possible, allow parents of younger persons to take responsibility
for them in changing rooms. If groups are to be supervised in changing
rooms, always ensure that adults work in pairs and that gender is
appropriate.
- If travelling to another venue is necessary,
make sure that verbal (preferably written) permission is given by parents.
Parents should be asked to ensure that younger persons are collected on
time.
- Where mixed groups of younger persons
travel to another venue to represent the Club, they should always be
accompanied by at last one male and one female adult.
- All should respect the rights, dignity and
worth of all and treat everyone with equality.
- All should place the well-being and safety of
the younger person above the development of performance. They should
follow all guidelines laid down by the RYA (including the pupil/instructor
ratio) and be adequately insured. Always make sure that you are working at
a level commensurate with your instructor qualifications. If you are
proved negligent the Club's insurance may be invalidated.
- Members working with younger persons should
hold appropriate qualifications in instructing, coaching, leadership,
officiating etc.
- Adults should ensure that the activities which
they direct or advocate are appropriate to the age, maturity and ability
of the participant e.g. they should not break rules on suitable
participation for age groups. Training activities should include clear
progressions and instructors should keep a clear record of all activity
undertaken, clearly planning for future activity. It is advisable to keep
a record of activity in a book kept for that purpose. Make sure all
participants know how to inform the instructor of any injury or illness
before, during or after the activity.
- Adults should always promote the positive
aspects of sailing and never condone rules violations, bad sportsmanship
or use of prohibited substances.
- Adults should consistently display high
standards of personal behaviour and appearance as well as appropriate
dress, language and respect for equipment and facilities. It is not
acceptable for adults to consume alcohol whilst supervising younger
persons and adults should never encourage younger persons to drink
alcohol.
- Adults should never overtly criticise
participants or officials' judgements or use language or actions which may
cause the younger person to lose self esteem or confidence.
- All members must also be aware that, as a
general rule, it does not make sense to:-
-Spend amounts of time alone with younger persons away from others.
-Take younger persons alone on car journeys, however short.
-Take younger persons to your home.
If it should arise that such situations are unavoidable, they should
only take place with the full knowledge of someone in charge in the Club
and/or a person with parental responsibility for the younger person.
- Instructors and volunteers/helpers should be
aware that normal car insurance does not cover them for transporting
younger persons to and from other venues.
- All instructors and volunteers/helpers should
try to be on time and inform an appropriate person if ill or unable to
attend an activity.
- Members should never:-
-Engage in rough physical or sexually provocative games including
horseplay.
-Share a room with a younger person.
-Permit or engage in any form of inappropriate touching.
-Permit younger persons to use inappropriate language unchallenged.
-Make sexually suggestive comments to younger persons, even in fun.
-Allow allegations made by a younger person to go unchallenged,
unrecorded or not acted upon.
-Do things of a personal nature that a younger person can do for
themselves.
-Agree to meet a younger person on your own.
- If you do accidentally hurt a younger person,
or cause distress in any manner, or the younger person appears to respond
in a sexual manner to your actions, or misunderstands or misinterprets
something you have done, report the incident to a colleague supported by a
brief written report of the incident as soon as possible. Parents/carers
should be informed of the incident.
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