Clubs play a vital role in keeping our children and young people safe, as well as looking after their coaches, officials, and adult players – without effort from clubs there would be less opportunities for our girls and women to play football in safe, welcoming environments.
At SWF we want to support our clubs in creating safe and nurturing places to train and play by providing advice and guidance, and sharing best practices – helping to ensure that proper processes and safeguards are in place and clubs are fulfilling their child protection requirements
Safe Selection Process
All SWF member clubs have a responsibility to ensure that they are familiar with our Safe Selection Process and adhere to the requirements of that process.
Before an Official can undertake their role within the club, whether that is as coach, first aider, CWPO etc. the following criteria has to be met.
Until all of the above steps have been completed, an official cannot start their role!
1. Two references obtained by the club and kept on file
- It is advised that one reference be obtained from the official’s former club
- The reference cannot be provided by someone at the new club
- The references should be from people who are NOT family members
- The references should be from people who have seen the official work with children/young people previously
- You can download reference template below.
2. Officials need to complete the online declarations
- There are four declarations:
- Code of Conduct (re-signed every year)
- Self Declaration Form (re-signed every year)
- Official Declaration (re-signed every year)
- Fair Processing Notice (once, upon joining)
3. Officials need to complete the online course ‘Children’s Wellbeing in Scottish Football’
- The course has to be completed every three years
- CWPOs also have to complete ’Managing Children’s Wellbeing’
4. Successful PVG
- This refers to a SWF PVG certificate – it does not matter if an official has a club PVG, SYFA PVG, work PVG etc – it has to be obtained by SWF
- PVG has to be renewed every three years
- The PVG is approved ‘successful’ by SWF – it is not enough that the Official has received it themselves
- For more information on the PVG process, click here.
