What is Safe Hands Management System (SHMS)?
The Safe Hands Management System, also known as SHMS, is an online Club Management Tool introduced in 2021 to support clubs in proactively managing safeguarding. It allows clubs to keep an accurate online record of all the individuals and volunteers in regulated roles at their club, and it directly links with ECB systems so accurately reflects DBS, SYC and CSO qualifications. It will be expanded to show coaching and first aid qualifications.
Currently all Clubmark clubs, and all clubs delivering National Programmes or youth cricket, have access to the system. All other affiliated clubs will receive their invite to use the system shortly.
Club Safeguarding Requirements
- All clubs with junior sections and any club playing under 18’s in open age cricket must meet safeguarding standards;
- The club must adhere to the ECB Safe Hands Policy and Procedures;
- Each club must have a trained and vetted Club Safeguarding Officer;
- All adults who work with children at the club have must have a current ECB DBS check in place; and
- All adults who work with children in cricket must have undertaken the appropriate ECB training.
BENEFITS OF USING SHMS
- It offers a secure platform for storing and managing information about club volunteers, no need to keep paper copies of the skills and qualification spreadsheet;
- It’s integrated to ECB systems, meaning all information, and dates of qualifications and expiries is continually up to date;
- It allows clubs to proactively manage their safeguarding responsibilities;
- There’s a dedicated Support Team dealing with any queries;
- It demonstrates that your club is committed to making cricket a safe sport for all;
- It’s a requirement for access to ECB funding; and
- Your club is entitled to free Public Liability insurance through Howdens on completion of an Insurance Risk Assessment accessed through SHMS.
What the clubs say…
Historically in order to keep up with the amount of volunteer roles especially with the likes of the Dynamos and All Stars programmes, we had to keep our own spreadsheet of our club helpers details, when they qualified, when things were up for renewal including DBS. What SHMS has done is centralise all that volunteer information and it calculates for you if you are compliant as a club (based on number of teams/participants). It is far easier as it does the legwork for the Safeguarding Officer in my case, by sending out an invitation email to the club volunteers asking them to join, once they have completed their simple details SHMS does the rest.
Another big plus is the online risk assessment which in turn gives the club very good insurance via the ECB and their appointed brokers ‘Howden’, the risk assessment is detailed but can be completed fully online in one go especially if you use the statistics you have already created on SHMS (Teams, break down in participant numbers etc). The insurance covers various liabilities (i.e. public, employers) and also covers directors/officers liabilities.
We took advantage of the free Public Liability insurance, and when our club insurance was up for renewal, we were able to save around £2,000 by removing coverage that was doubled up by having separate policies.
SMHS Information and process
- Decide who is going to be the lead SHMS administrator
- Accept the role
- Ensure that your club information is entered and up to date on the system portal
- Add all of your club volunteers onto the system
- Allocate roles to these volunteers – You are now able to add multiple roles to a contact in one action rather than having to do this separately for each role.
- Ensure that all of your volunteers accept their roles on the system when they receive the notification email from the ECB
- Ensure that all of your volunteers have an ECB DBS check and that your Club Safeguarding Officer (CSO) has a Safe Hands certificate, ECB DBS and an Online Safeguarding Young Cricketers (SYC) qualification.
- Ensure that you have the correct number of volunteers loaded to match your club information – For example if you run 3 senior teams then 3 team captains should be loaded onto the system with DBS check
- Finally, ensure that all of your coaches hold a current online SYC certification – This will be the next upgrade and addition to the SHMS.
A link to a useful club checklist for keeping your SHMS up to date can be found here!
Who is the right person at the club to administer the SHMS?
Have a think about who is the right person at the club to be the Lead Administrator of the Safe Hands Management System. Ideally, they need to be
- Comfortable with using IT systems
- Have good knowledge of the volunteers and junior cricket at your club
- Have a good understanding of current safeguarding requirements for volunteers and clubs
It is possible to add more than one administrator for your club.
Key Officials
All members of your cricket club who carry out any of the roles listed below must be added to SHMS – https://shms.powerappsportals.com/.
- Age Group Manager
- All Stars Activator
- Assistant Coach
- Club Chair
- Club Safeguarding Officer
- Coach
- First Aider/Physiotherapist/Medical Support
- Junior Supervisor
- Open Age Team Captain
- Scorer (aged 16 & above)
- Umpire
- Volunteer Co-ordinator
For an exhaustive list of roles in cricket that require a DBS click here
If you need any help, head to the ECB Zendesk for handy video tutorials and other important information
Contacts
- Brian Hoyle, Safeguarding Manager & County Safeguarding Officer – brian.hoyle@somersetcricketfoundation.org
- Matthew Counsell, Club & Leagues Manager – matthew.counsell@somersetcricketfoundation.org
- Nicky Clarke, Cricket Operations Officer – nicky.clarke@somersetcricketfoundation.org
- Ben Osborne, Club & Leagues Development Officer – ben.osborne@somersetcricketfoundation.org
