THE SCENARIO
Your club is running a tournament over the summer holidays. One of your young people goes missing during it; what can we do to reduce the risks of young people potentially going missing?
THE SPORT WELFARE RESPONSE
There is a real risk of young people going missing during events and competitions, especially at larger scale events. We must remember to put policies and procedures in place so that staff know how to respond should this occur.
It is important that we register all participants and staff for any type of event, and this includes having young people’s emergency contact details.
We also need to ensure we have parental consent prior to the activity, and record medical and special needs of young people so they can be provided with appropriate support; this also includes gathering information about young people that may be at particular risk of going missing.
Prior to any type of activity and event, we need to complete Risk Assessments, which should cover the risk of participants going missing and our responding procedures.
Additionally, we also need to put adequate supervision and safety measures in place and consider whether to recruit more volunteers to help supervise the event. Parents and guardians are great to recruit for one off volunteer roles to add capacity.
There should always be a person identified as the Event Welfare Officer or Safeguarding Lead who will manage any concerns that arise at the event.
It can be useful to brief all staff ahead of the event so that everyone understands their role and how to respond to situations that may occur.
In the unfortunate case that a young person does go missing, there are certain things we must remember:
- If there are any immediate concerns about a child’s safety, contact police on 999.
- Start a search for the young person, as well as informing the Safeguarding Lead and security immediately. We need to get information about where the young person was last seen and who they were with. If they have a phone, we should also attempt to contact them.
- We must remember to assess whether police are needed for the search, but they must be notified if the child has not been found within 20 minutes. The child’s parent or carer also needs to be informed.
Missing child procedure can be found here:
Learn more here about running safer events:
Note that your National Governing Body (NGB) may have separate procedures you are expected to follow, therefore you should check with your NGB for any specific guidance for your sport.
