The British Aikido Board - CHANGING ROOM POLICY – INCLUDING CLUB RESPONSIBILITIES

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GUIDANCE ON CHANGING ROOM POLICY – INCLUDING CLUB RESPONSIBILITIES

APPENDIX 14

CHANGING ROOM POLICY – INCLUDING CLUB RESPONSIBILITIES

AFTER A TRAINING SESSION IS COMPLETED

Information for parents regarding changing facilities

In many clubs children and adults come changed ready to undertake their training session. However, this policy is relevant to those clubs where changing rooms are used by club members under 18 years of age.

Ensure that parents are made aware that changing facilities at venues may be shared by both club members and members of the general public.
Ensure parents are made aware of the type of changing rooms i.e. separate areas for male and female, or changing villages
Ensure the expected behavior of your child members in changing rooms is known to the child members and their parents.
Ensure parents are aware they should not be in the changing room while their child is changing unless the child is of an age where help is required from parents, or the child requires additional specific assistance. This is generally at an age that is stipulated by the venue hirer, usually 7 or 8 years of age. In such circumstances the parent must be same gender as the child, unless the facility has family changing facilities or is a “mixed changing village”.
Ensure that when running competitions where other clubs/activities are involved, the competition organisers advise parents and competitors (via the competition information) if the facilities are likely to be open to the general public at any time during the event
Whenever possible, coaches are to follow best practice and should not change with (i.e at the same time as) their junior members..

Responsibility after a session is completed

BAB policy is that each affiliated club has a “duty of care” to child members, which extends to an awareness on the part of the club that their junior members have been collected, in so far as is possible, at the conclusion of a session, i.e. a child member should not be left unsupervised if a parent is late. This has to be age-appropriate, i.e. 17 year olds are capable of getting themselves home, but a 12 year old is not. However, if a club uses changing rooms that are also accessible to non-club members it would be extreme to expect a club to search the changing areas in case a junior club member was there.

Best practice would be for a club to make all child members and their parents aware that if they are not collected by a parent then they should make that known to the club WO, coach or whoever a club deem to be appropriate, and for the nominated individual to ensure that the child member is supervised appropriately until a parent arrives or the parent communicates alternative arrangements.

Action in the Event a Parent/Guardian Fails to Collect a Child. If a parent/guardian fails to collect a child the club should follow the procedure outlined in APPENDIX 12.

This appendix is part of the BAB Safeguarding Policy which is held as a PDF document in the download area (shown below) and should be considered as the only reference document. Although these pages will be kept up to date as much as possible they may not be as current or may be abridged in comparison to the Safeguarding Policy. After reading any information here please reconfirm from the latest version of the Safeguarding Policy.