Most club safeguarding failures are not dramatic. They look like a DBS certificate from 2019 that nobody has looked at since, a coach texting a 15-year-old about training times, or a welfare officer whose name is still on the website two seasons after they left. Each one is small. Together they mean that when a real concern turns up, nobody knows who to tell or what was agreed.

This guide covers the parts every UK club with junior members needs, whatever the sport: football, swimming, gymnastics, tennis, judo. It goes through the welfare officer, which criminal record check applies to whom, the standards and policies, qualifications, how adults talk to under-18s, photos, and what to do when someone raises a concern. Your governing body’s safeguarding policy sits above all of this. Where it is stricter, follow it.

Start with the welfare officer

Every club with junior members needs a named club welfare officer. NSPCC Sport’s role description gives them primary responsibility for managing and reporting concerns and for making sure the club has procedures in place. In practice they are the first person anyone goes to with a worry. They hold the contact details for local children’s services and the police, and they sit on the committee so safeguarding gets discussed alongside fixtures and money.

They also link to your governing body’s lead safeguarding officer, who handles serious cases and decides what goes further. The welfare officer does not investigate. Their job is to listen, write it down and pass it to the right person quickly.

Pick someone who is not the head coach. Concerns are sometimes about the coach.
Send them on the welfare officer course your governing body runs, if it has one, and a basic safeguarding course if it does not.
Publish their name, phone number and email where parents and juniors will see it: the website, the noticeboard, the joining pack.
Name a deputy, so a concern still has somewhere to go when the welfare officer is on holiday.

DBS checks: which level, and for whom

England and Wales have four levels of check from the Disclosure and Barring Service, set out in the table at the end of this section. Only a registered organisation can ask for a standard or enhanced check, so most clubs apply through their governing body or an umbrella body. Nobody under 16 can be asked to apply.

Regulated activity is the line that matters. Teaching, training, instructing, caring for or supervising children counts if you do it frequently, on more than three days in any 30-day period, or overnight between 2am and 6am. A barred person must not do it.

The rules changed on 1 September 2026. Before then, a volunteer who helped coach while supervised by a checked adult could fall outside regulated activity. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 removed that supervision exemption in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the government guidance names sports clubs. The people it catches are the volunteer assistants who turn up every week. They now need an enhanced check with the children’s barred list. A parent who helps out now and then is not affected.

It is less painful than it sounds. Standard and enhanced checks are free for volunteers, though an umbrella body may charge an admin fee. The law does not make you re-check everyone at once either, so start with the people who have never had a barred list check.

Scotland and Northern Ireland run their own schemes. In Scotland, PVG membership through Disclosure Scotland has been mandatory for regulated roles since 1 April 2025, and it is free for volunteers. Northern Ireland uses AccessNI.

A DBS certificate has no official expiry date. It is accurate on the day it was issued and no later. Many clubs and governing bodies re-check every three years, and the DBS Update Service keeps a certificate current for an annual fee, which is free for volunteers. Find out what your governing body requires and put the date in the diary.

Level	What it shows	Who needs it in a club
Basic	Unspent convictions and conditional cautions	Anyone can get one; fine for roles with no contact with children
Standard	Spent and unspent convictions and cautions, minus those removed by filtering rules	A short list of roles set in law; rare in a sports club
Enhanced	As standard, plus relevant information held by local police	Work with children that falls short of regulated activity
Enhanced with barred list	As enhanced, plus whether the person is barred from working with children	Anyone in regulated activity with children

Policies, codes of conduct and the NSPCC Sport Standards

The Child Protection in Sport Unit is now called NSPCC Sport. Its Standards for Safeguarding and Protecting Children in Sport set out what a well-run sports organisation does, in ten parts: responding to concerns, operating systems, prevention, codes of ethics and conduct, equity, communication, education and training, access to advice and support, implementation and monitoring, and influencing others. Scotland has its own Standards for Child Wellbeing and Protection in Sport.

Codes of conduct only work if people agree to them and the club acts when someone breaks one. Get agreement when someone joins and again when the code changes. The coaches’ code should say in plain words what is not acceptable: being alone with a junior out of sight of others, giving lifts without a parent’s agreement, private messages, and relationships with 16 and 17-year-olds. Since 2022, sexual activity between a sports coach and a 16 or 17-year-old they regularly coach has been a criminal offence, even though the young person is over the age of consent.

A small club does not need ten documents. It needs these, written in plain English, adopted by the committee and published where members can read them:

A safeguarding policy. Start from your governing body’s template instead of writing one from scratch.
A procedure for responding to concerns: who to tell, in what order, with phone numbers.
Codes of conduct for coaches and volunteers, for parents, and for young members. Three short codes work better than one long one.
A photography and filming policy.
An anti-bullying policy and a complaints procedure.
A note on how you keep and share personal information.

Qualifications and expiry dates

A coach’s file holds more than a DBS check. Expect a governing body coaching award, a first aid certificate, safeguarding training and, in some sports, a licence. Most of these expire, and on different dates. It is entirely possible to have a coach with a valid DBS, an in-date coaching licence and a first aid certificate that lapsed in March.

The fix is dull: one list, every adult, every certificate, with an expiry date next to each. Look at it at every committee meeting. Chase renewals two or three months out, because course places fill up and DBS applications take time.

Record the certificate number, issue date and expiry date, not just "has first aid".
Keep a copy of the evidence and restrict who can see it.
Decide in advance what happens on expiry. One workable rule is that the coach can still assist but cannot lead a session until the certificate is renewed.
Tell parents which qualifications your coaches hold. It answers a question they are already asking.

Talking to under-18s, and photos

Most problems here start with a coach trying to be helpful. A quick text about a changed session time becomes a private chat, and the private chat is where boundaries slip. Write the rule down and keep it simple: coaches do not message under-18s privately. Messages about training go to the group or to the parent. If a junior messages a coach directly, the reply goes to the group or copies in a parent.

The same rule applies to social media. Coaches should not follow or friend junior members from personal accounts. Use a club account that more than one adult can see.

Photos are not banned, and NSPCC Sport says the safeguards should be proportionate. What you need is consent and some care with names.

Get parental consent before photographing or filming under-16s. NSPCC Sport publishes a consent form template you can adapt.
Ask the child too, and let them withdraw later.
Do not pair a junior’s full name with their photo on the website or social media.
Give whoever takes photos at sessions a list of the juniors without consent.

When someone raises a concern

One change to watch first. The Crime and Policing Act 2026 creates a duty for people in regulated activity with children in England, sports coaches included, to report child sexual abuse to the police or the local authority. No start date has been set, and guidance will come first. When it does, your concerns procedure will need updating.

Until then, every adult at the club should know the steps below without looking them up. Put them on one page and pin it up where coaches will see it.

If a child is in immediate danger, call 999.
Listen. Do not promise to keep it secret, do not ask leading questions and do not investigate.
Write down what was said, in the child’s own words, with the date, time and who was there.
Tell the welfare officer the same day. They contact the governing body’s lead safeguarding officer and, where needed, children’s services or the police.
If the concern is about a coach, volunteer or anyone else working with children in England, the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) needs to know. Statutory guidance expects a referral within one working day where the threshold is met.
If you are unsure, call the NSPCC helpline on 0808 800 5000. Children can call Childline on 0800 1111.
Store the record securely and apart from general club admin. It often holds health details and other special category data under UK GDPR, so only the welfare officer and their deputy should be able to open it. A shared committee drive is the wrong place, and so is a WhatsApp thread. When the welfare officer changes, hand the records over properly.

We build OurClub: where software helps and where it does not

Declared interest: we build OurClub, so weigh this section with that in mind. Most of safeguarding is people. Software cannot pick a good welfare officer, train your coaches or decide whether a concern needs a call to the LADO. It can take some record-keeping off a volunteer’s desk and make a few rules hard to break.

Accreditations is off until you switch it on under Features. It records DBS checks, first aid, safeguarding training and coaching awards with the number, dates and evidence. Each night it marks lapsed records as expired, and it warns admins and the coach 30 days before a record expires. Coaches can add their own certificates from the app, and every admin is told when they do. Members see in-date badges on a Coaching Team page for the types you choose to show. OurClub does not issue or verify anything, DBS checks included, so someone at the club still has to look at the certificate.

Messaging has one rule nobody can switch off: a coach cannot message a member under 18, checked from their date of birth. Members cannot message each other unless you turn that on, and every conversation involving a coach is kept for audit. Direct messages are screened before delivery. One that raises concerns is held, checked again against the whole conversation, and your admins or named safeguarding lead are told. Admins review held messages in a moderation queue, but never one from a conversation they are part of. Members agree your code of conduct and other required policies before they can book, the agreement is recorded on their account, and they are asked again when a policy changes.

There are gaps. Profile pictures are not scanned, and progress journal videos are not scanned yet. OurClub has no monthly fee and one all-in rate from 3.25% of what you process, with card fees included. None of it replaces the one-page concerns procedure on the wall.