Safeguarding Children

For over a decade Local Leagues has been recruiting, CRB checking, and training young people to become sports coaches.   At a conservative estimate, an average of 50 (national & international) students attending local Universities will sign up with Local Leagues volunteering program every year. 

During this period, Local Leagues have offered at least as many placements to secondary school and college age young people and recruited community volunteers. 

It has always been Local Leagues' policy to issue all our volunteers with a Local Leagues uniform as a simple 'thank you' for volunteering with us.  This means that there are in excess of over 1,000 Local Leagues uniforms in circulation within the UK (and beyond).

As part of our safeguarding children (and our staff):

• All sessions in schools are booked from Local Leagues Head Office at 91 Court Rd, Balsall Heath, Birmingham B12 9LQ;
• All volunteers / coaches placed in schools will provide a copy of a valid CRB, for the schools’ record;
• Local Leagues coaches do not ask school staff for money to deliver sessions;
• Local Leagues coaches do not carry money to or from sessions;
• All volunteer expenses are reimbursed by Local Leagues - no volunteer will ever ask a school to reimburse themselves;
• Some Local Leagues volunteers may ask a member of staff to sign an attendance sheet / feedback sheet for sessions they have delivered which are used by Admin staff to ensure accurate employers references can be offered to our volunteers.

 

Schools / Football Club etc. wishing to employ coaches are reminded they are under a statutory duty to verify the identity, CRB status, and qualifications of any individual they employ to work with children.

If you have any concerns about any individual claiming to be an employee or volunteer of Local Leagues (past or present), you should make attempts to verify them. 

We would respectfully like to remind you that your primary duty of care is to the children you work with.  Please verify the credentials by contacting our Head Office on 0121 446 4111, our contact details are on our website www.localleagues.com/contactus.html

The above advice was prepared at the request of a Sports Organisation in the North of England.  They employed an individual claiming to be a Local Leagues employee, failed to check references and / or perform CRB checks.  Later they discovered the individual in question had been banned from working with children 2 years earlier and had twice failed a CRB check with the Football Association.

Please safeguard your children and verify all assertions made by potential employees.