The role of a CWPO (Club Wellbeing and Protection Officer) is vital in football– helping to keep our children and young people safe and happy, and providing support and guidance to clubs and parents – but it is one which can be forgotten about, and lonely.
SWF tries to ensure that the wellbeing and welfare of our young players is at the heart of what we do. We want to ensure that our CWPOs, many of whom are volunteers, feel confident and supported in their roles; and that they know that they are not alone.
The Wellbeing Team has a number of initiatives specifically for CWPOs to try and support them:
CWPO Network Forums
Since the start of 2022, we have arranged quarterly network forums for our CWPOs in order to provide an opportunity for our CWPOs to meet in a safe space and support each other, share experiences, and raise issues that they have encountered and how best to manage them. It also provides a platform for increasing knowledge and awareness of issues which are relevant to player wellbeing and child protection.
Our next forums will take place on in the coming months, keep an eye out for dates via the SWF newsletter and email communication.
CWPO Induction and Refresher Training
CWPO Induction and Refresher Training
In order to provide relevant information and support from the outset for our CWPOs, we provide induction training sessions (which also provides as a useful refresher course for existing CWPOs) twice-yearly. These sessions detail the ‘fundamentals’ which we would want our CWPOs to know – including the SWF Safe Selection Process; recognising abuse; and how to respond to concerns.
They are a great way of gaining an understanding of the role from an SWF perspective, and also getting to know other CWPOs and our Wellbeing and Protection Team.
The next induction sessions will take place in October 2023.
CWPO ‘TeamTalk’
In 2022 we launched a quarterly newsletter for our CWPOs – our CWPO ‘TeamTalk’ which is a further step in helping us to stay connected with our CWPOs – letting you know what the Team have been doing as well as sharing best practices and good news stories from clubs.
We hope all of these initiatives will help our CWPOs feel empowered in their role, understand how valued and appreciated they are, and know that they are not alone.
If you are a CWPO and want to ensure that you are on our mailing list for all of the above initiatives, please complete this form.
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