Having run football team from kids aged 6 to 17 as a manager and as a club secretary in both the Bexley league and Kent league , the present proposals seem to challenge the everyday running of kids football, and teenagers.
As a vetted sports coach by the FA Junior managers qualification, and having got my club registerd with the FA, and FA charter, and played with Long Lane, Kingfisher, Gravesend and Norhtflleet and Bexley FC I was quite happy to undergo police checks on my suitability. As a school governor and as a former qualified teacher I see the need for this. But to expect parents to go through all of this is going to make local football matches very difficult. Many a time I have taken lads in my car to matches and not having a mini bus all the parents did this. School games, County games etc. On one hand we want to support OUR kids, and protect them, but these measures seem unworkable.
Obviously club officials need to be checked, and a person at the club responsible. I did this and supported this, but will parents helping out be prepared to do this. Will there Insurance be valid etc.
All very well for the Goverment to insist on this are they prepared to pay for the vetting and the transport arrangements. How do you take a team of 8 year old in a cup game to the other side of London without the support of the parents!
We had some great parents who were willing to help out, and do there bit to ferry kids to games. One of those 'kids' now plays in the Charlton first team!......
I am not sure now I would be prepared to do this as the current culture of 'Health and safety', 'claims' and blame culture seem to scare the very grass roots organised activities that is the bedrock of junior football.
Yes we ned properly organised, football, Insurance and CRVC, and qualified coaches,..... we also ned the support of the parents as well.
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Oh for the happy days of my childhood/youth when we had real freedom and could walk the streets and play in parks go fishing(on our own) and partake in sports and all kinds of outdoor activities without all this PC shit!
The Esta Rantzens of this world have a great deal to answer for with their ridiculous OTT scare mongering.
That said, parents can still help out in this way if it is not frequent (once or twice a month) or if the club isn't involved in the arrangements ie. if the arrangement is private then that is not affected.
Of course it is worth noting that the majority of child abuse is by family and friends of the family.
If i ask my mate to bring my son and his son to the match it does not count
it is to cover someone who does regular ferrying of Groups of children. not on the odd occasion that you need a favour and even then you wouldnt just ask anyone to do it surely.
Far too often Junior football clubs are seen as an after school child minding service and we ask at our club for active parent support and co operation the reason there are so many children exposed to these dirty Peado bstds is because there are not more controls and some parents assume that he must be ok he is involved in the team.
I had a teacher in St Marys Cof E school in woolwich who was later on in life exposed as a paedo, this bloke was trusted by all the kids and all the parents fortunatly for me i was a gobby little shite and he proberly knew i would have told everyone what the dirty bastd tried to do others wernt so lucky,
9 times out of 10 these people have found themselves in trouble with the OB for related offences and the thought that they might be exposed will stop them from applying.
then it is down to you as parents and those involved in the club to stop anyone who has not done their check from having any active involvement with the kids until they have.
it costs 12 quid and mine took 2 weeks to come back why wouldnt someone do it if that what is required
Unfortunately youth groups and sports teams are possible places for abuse so should have reasonable controls. That's not to say that 99.9% of the people running such clubs aren't are all fine and overboard but if filling out a few forms and providing proof of ID puts off one abuser and protects one child then all well and good.
I sometimes work in Schools and places with vulnerable adults so I've done a CRB check. I'm very rarely asked for it as I don't work with children but it was really no big deal to complete (less than doing a passport) and I'd rather have it than not.
Understand your comments North London, however at the present moment in time it takes 6 weeks to do a CRV at this time of year for teachers. Like you clubs should be more organised.
It is the definition of regular, is that once a month, once a week, once a year.
When my twins played at school , they were in the a club team, who played once a week , trained twice a week, and played for there school, North Kent and Kent later on. That is an awful lot of matches and leagues.
The clubs we attended, all had CRV approved 'helpers and qualified coaches' this is a requirment through the Bexley league and Kent FA. as well as LYFA. Long lane was the first club to be granted FA charter status, yet we only had a coach or mini bus for 1 match a cup final!. The same parents, took the players in there cars to the away matches. You have no way of knowing if a parent has a dubious past, in the same way if they have a valid MOT certificate on there car. At one club I took out a million pound indemnity insurance for players and our parents to protect the club, players and officials.
We never had a coach for a school football match. When we played in the Kent League at Gravesend under 15 we never had a coach, travelled all over Kent, Sittingboune, Ramsgate, Dover etc. And every week I would take my kids and others in my car. Okay I was CRV'd as was my wife, perhaps things have changed in the last couple of years, but I doubt it.
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As I stated, what is regular use, more than 10 times a year I am sure would be considered 'regular'. I am not talking about club officials here but parents.
By the way you have no right to challenge a player's 'right to play' even if you think his card is forged/ false, you can only report this to the ref and the league concerned, at least that was the case a couple of years ago.
Sorry Ken, I don't see a problem with being CRB checked and think anyone who wants to be involved in running a football team, even as a driver, should welcome it as it protects them as well.
Don't think they do the certs anymore but the Community Trust may still do the training.
Everyone who gives up their time to train and help these kids find something active for them to do does an excellent job most have kids in the team themselves so it is only right and fair that other parents actively support them by attendeing traing and matches, in our team i think there is 1 single mum who is the next door neighbour of another player who sometimes struggles to split herself between the daughters drama school and the footie, That is an agreement between the two parents and from as far as our wellfare officer is concerned does not fall under the specfics responsibilty of the Football Club.
The CRB is only required for regular ferrying of groups of children, Now they dont specifically say what a group or regular is deemed but the sensible and only way to be 100% safe in each clubs mind is to pay attention to who brings who,
if you notice that there is a lack of support from a players parents speak to them explain the situation that it may put the club in and like our club put in place an agreement/code of conduct that all players and parents must abide by and ours says that we expect the parents to play an active role in supporting their children in their football and that includes attending matches and training, that removes any need for the CRB.
I run a lads football team.
Priority is given to school workers, and rightly so, but last year my application was returned because of their heavy workload and they asked me to re-submit this year. Now for 2009/10 there is a new league rule that dads cannot referee unless they have been CRB checked, yet the CRB checkers are still returning hundreds of applications due to the workload.
It is pointless making this legislation without the means to administer it and enforce it.
Driving Licences/Passports/ Birth Certificates are all being forged and in circulation, and CRB checks will just be another forgery that will get added to this list.
Education (teach children about the dangers) not regulation (loads of forms getting filled-out to no avail) is the quick way to stamp out this menace.
All teams that are affiliated to an Fa should have a wellfare officer, that wellfare officer should have been given a date in which if all CRB forms were handed back to the affiliated Fa by they would guarantee that they would all be back in time for start of the season.
I think this was a directive from The Fa and they did foresee the issues and were given a specfic set of dates i know that all the CRB's that we applied for and there are 11 teams in our club were dealt with and issued last Thursday in ample time for the opening games of the season,
If that has not happened then you should contact your fa or welfare officer as i agree with you what is the point of filling them in if they get backed like that.
a very good point and therefore an example of why the only person who can safe gaurd your children is you, At our club if the kid goes down injured the parent along with the coach goes on the field of play, all training is done in view of the parents as are team talks and matches.
I really can not emphasise the importance a parent plays in the running of a footie team
If a child gets abducted/molested etc then you bet the Daily Mail types will go screaming to the press that something should have been done, what are the police doing all day chasing motorists for going 5MPH faster than the law allows when they should have been checking for paedophiles etc, that it's an outrage and would never have happened in their day etc.
On the otherhand I can see that a lot of people who help out after school, or with local sports clubs etc are going to be unable to help because they haven't had the right piece of paperwork stamped and approved.
I have 3 daughters and have taken and coleected them from countless sporting and social activities over the years. Invariably my daughter would ask if I could also take "X" home or collect "X" and take her too.
Often "X" was somebody I'd never met before and I certainly had never met the parent (s). Yet they were seemingly happy for their child to travel with a complete stranger.
It frankly amazes me, speaking as a parent, that so many other parents have such a laissez faire attitude to how their children get around even though it is a pain in the ar** not having a drink on Friday and/or Saturday nights and then having to go out at midnight or after to collect.
That is the problem in my view and the answer is not to criminalise or inconvenience decent people who simply try to help out.
As a parent I share concerns about paedophiliac scum but in this country people are innocent until proven guilty. I don't think I would take a check just because I give friends of my daughter a lift, not because I have anything to hide but because there is a freedom principle at stake here. I simply would refuse to transport any child other than my own.
My view would be different if I set myself up as a leader or helper at a club since the right of parents to know who is looking after their children (if they give a toss) would outweigh my rights in that situation. I would then have the decision to make as to whether I can be bothered to help out or not.
To summarise a lot of the problems occur because some parents don't care about the whereabouts of their children properly in my opinion.
my point exactly
And yes in the end it is down the parent to take responsibility.
The fact is that cases of child abduction and murder have remained fairly constant over the last 30 years. Whilst figures are very hard to get on child abuse (due to much of it going unreported) it is unlikely that figures have soared (there are arguments that the figures could actually be falling as children now have far more ways of reporting and talking about abuse, particularly anonymous and semi-anonymous methods such as the internet. Also many of the sorts of institutions where abuse has been reported in the past, i.e. youth clubs/groups, religious groups, etc. have even fallen out of popularity or simply been shut down, meaning far fewer children actually go to these things, plus these are the sorts of places where CRB is at its most effective).
What has massively increased is fear and paranoia surrounding children, most if it government and media fueled.
The is little evidence that CRB checks have had any real impact on the number of crimes against children, and this new expanded scheme will be similarly unsuccessful. All it does is further convince parents that every other adult is a potential paedophile and that their children should be wrapped in cotton wall and hidden from the world.
It's similar to the CRB but whereas companies can presently use their discretion to employ someone with a dodgy CRB check, the Independent Safeguarding Authority can legally prevent companies employing them...
It's going to be compulsory and will run along side the CRB, POVA etc., it costs £64 as well (free for volunteers)...
Just another prime example of the overprotectiveness of the 'Nanny State'...
If you say so Chirpy :-)
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The point I'm making is that if the government don't do anything and someone's kid gets abused etc then the parents will moan that there should have been safeguards in place etc. If they do something...then people moan about government interfering.
Hence the next post after yours:
"Just another prime example of the overprotectiveness of the 'Nanny State'..."
So whatever the government does, they've made a mistake, all good knee-jerk reaction stuff.
They take 3-4 months (at best) to come back, by then a paedo would've done what he wanted to do and left by then anyway.
It's just money for old rope.
All the CRB does is alert potential employers of convictions from the past, it has no effect whatsoever on those clever enough to disguise their ill-doings....
The biggest joke is the amount of time it takes to retrieve and pass on the relevant information, it is all held on one central database and ought to take moments to check and cross reference and come up with a decision, the police can take the same information and use the same data and have the answers almoast immediately...
Just had mine come back - needed it for work purposes but no reason to suppose it would be any different in a private capacity. Only took about two weeks.