Schaumburg Athletic Association

SAA Guidelines for Working with Children

The following guidelines are to assist coaches, Sports Board and Executive Board members, and others including but not limited to trainers working with children.

Physical Contact: Generally physical contact with players/participants should be:

• To develop sport skills
• To treat an injury
• To prevent or respond to an injury
• To meet the specific requirements of the sport.

All physical contact by personnel should fulfill the following criteria:

• Physical contact should be appropriate for the development of a sport skills
• Permission from the player/participant should be sought
• Player/participants should be congratulated or comforted in public, not in an isolated setting

Supervision for children: The number of staff needed will depend on the age and number of children involved, and whether there are disability considerations.

Being alone with a child: Do not isolate yourself and a child and avoid being alone with any particular child. If a child approaches you and wants to talk to you privately about a matter, do so in an open area and in the sight of other adults (e.g. other coaches, officials or parents/guardians). Ideally advise another coach or official and ask them to stay within sight while you have the discussion and to come to your assistance if the child becomes emotional and/or you indicate support is required in dealing with the child. Avoid unaccompanied and unobserved activities with children.

The following practices are never sanctioned. You should never:

• Engage in rough, physical or sexually provocative games, including horseplay
• Share a room with a child
• Allow or engage in any form of inappropriate touching
• Allow children to use inappropriate language unchallenged
• Make sexually suggestive comments to a child, even in fun
• Reduce a child to tears as a form of control
• Allow allegations made by a child to go unchallenged, unrecorded or not acted upon
• Do things of a personal nature for children that they can do for themselves
• Invite or allow children to stay with you at your home unsupervised

Adopt positive language and behavior: Adopt positive language when talking with children and in the presence of children. This includes avoiding bad or aggressive language that could intimidate a child or set a poor example.

Change Rooms: Before going into change rooms knock or announce that you will be coming in and try to have at least one adult with you in a change room with children. Do not isolate yourself and a child from others in the change room.

Collection by parents/guardians: Let parents/guardians know about policy on the collection of children. A list of action items that could help include:

• Letting children, parents/guardians know the times of practices and games, when they can expect to collect their children and that it is not your responsibility to transport children home if parents are delayed.
• Have a policy that the second to the last child and their parent/guardian will wait with the coach and the child. This will also enable the coach to concentrate on making contact with the parent/guardian.
• If there are other people at the facility, wait for the parent/guardian closer to those people. In the meantime try to make contact with the parent/guardian.
• Avoid the risk of being alone with a child by having a parent/guardian or support person assist you with the training. Require that person to wait until all children have left.

Transport of players/participants: Ideally all players/participants should have their own transportation to and from sporting events. You should only provide transportation when:

• The driver is properly licensed
• Other players/participants/parents/guardians are in the vehicle
• The ride has been approved by parents/guardians
• The ride is directly to/from sports or recreational activities
• You should also call someone and tell them what you are doing, the exact time you are leaving – so that you are accountable for your time.

Overnight trips: Always have more than one adult with children on an overnight trip/camp and do not separate yourself and children from other adult/s. There should always be more than one adult with a group of children, even if the number of children is small. Mixed gender is preferable. Options to consider on an overnight trip/camp include obtaining separate sleeping accommodations from the children (adults in separate rooms). There must be emergency procedures in place to enable supervising adults to respond to any alarm raised by a child. If an alarm is raised by a child, more than one adult should respond.

Injuries and Illness: Have guidelines for handling injuries that occur during sporting activities. Personnel should avoid treating injuries out of sight of others. Other considerations include:

• The comfort level and dignity of the players/participants should always be the priority.
• Only uncover the injured area, or drape private parts of the player/participants body.
• Always report injuries and any treatment provided to parents and document an incident.
• If necessary seek medical attention as soon as possible.

“Blood rule”: Coaches and officials are to remove any child that is bleeding from a practice or game and stop the flow of blood before allowed to again join in the activity.

Photographing Children: Be aware that there are some people who visit sporting events to take inappropriate photographs or video footage of children. You need to be alert to this possibility and report any concerns to an official in the organization.

All reported concerns identifying non-compliance to the above guidelines will be immediately investigated by the individual sport board and reported to the Executive Board. Disciplinary action will be taken if appropriate.