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 they are protected from abuse.
Safe Clubs Safe Kids is New Zealand Rugby’s (NZR) Child Protection Programme. Through this programme NZR supports providing Provincial Unions (PUs) and Clubs with guidance about protecting children and young people involved in rugby.
PUs all have Safeguarding Children policies and have Safe Kids Advisors (Child Protection Advisors). Clubs are encouraged to adopt their PU Safeguarding Children policy. As part of our Safe Clubs Safe Kids programme, NZR police vets all junior coaches.
We’ve developed these guidelines in consultation with other sporting organisations and NZ Police. The guidelines are available here and have been distributed to all PUs for further distribution to Clubs.
Child Protection Policy
- Brief Child Protection policy [PDF 184KB]
- Child Protection Policy Template [Word Doc 634KB]
Safeguarding and Child Protection Webinars
Join us online on one of our four webinars to gain a deeper understanding of appropriate responses to child protection concerns by working through relevant scenarios.
What will I learn?
• A greater understanding of the responsibilities attached to safeguarding and child protection in community sport.
• Recognise the role of your setting in providing early help to vulnerable children in order to minimise and manage risk.
• Managing concerns regarding a child in need of protection or regarding an employee or volunteer of the organisation.
• Difficult conversations.
• Reporting thresholds and ‘grey’ areas.
