Safe Clubs Safe Kids (Safer Communities)
Each season over 88,000 Small Blacks enjoy playing rugby every weekend. Providing a fun and safe environment for Small Blacks is everybody’s responsibility, and it’s also up to all of us to make sure we protect their potential. Be a Kaitiaki for our tamariki.
Safe Clubs Safe Kids is New Zealand Rugby’s (NZR) Child Safeguarding and Protection Programme. Through this programme NZR supports Provincial Unions (PUs) and clubs with guidance about protecting children and young people involved in rugby.
What is safeguarding?
Safeguarding is more holistic and proactive, focusing on creating a safe and supportive environment to prevent harm from occurring in the first place.
Child Protection focuses specifically on protecting children from immediate harm or abuse and responds to incidents as they arise.
In sports, both are essential: child protection ensures that when something goes wrong, there are systems in place to address it, while safeguarding works to ensure that children’s overall wellbeing is maintained, and the risks of harm are minimised. Sport now talks about safeguarding to cover both prevention and responses to concerns.
PUs all have Child Safeguarding and Protection policies and have Safe Kids Advisors in each Union. Clubs are encouraged to adopt their PU Child Safeguarding and Protection policy, participate in education opportunities offered by the PUs and encourage all adults involved in their teams to engage with the polices and education. It is the expectation of World Rugby and NZR that anyone coaching Under 18s does some form of safeguarding training.
As part of our Safe Clubs Safe Kids programme, NZR police vets all junior coaches on behalf of the PUs and clubs. We’ve developed guidelines in consultation with other sporting organisations and industry experts. The guidelines are available here and will be updated via this platform if any changes are needed. In addition, NZR has a Safeguarding Lead who supports PUs and clubs with any concerns, advice and education.
If you are worried about discussing a concern with the PU Safe Kids advisor or aren’t sure who that is, you can email safeguarding@nzrugby.co.nz for advice.
Child Protection Policy
- Brief Child Protection policy [PDF 184KB]
- Child Protection Policy Template [Word Doc 634KB]
Coming in 2026 is a New Zealand Rugby online training about Child Safeguarding but in the meantime, there are a number of short e-learns at Sport NZ which are good to do in preparation.
