WeCare – Welfare and Well-being Support

Club Safeguarding Officers can now access medical, mental health and well-being support through Canada Life WeCare.  This is an excellent, free and entirely confidential support scheme that the ECB are providing for the Club and County Safeguarding Officer network.  The provision will also be available for immediate family members also.

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 is always a real time indicator of your clubs safeguarding provision.

All of our clubs have now been invited to onboard onto the SHMS with many of our clubs pro-actively using the system to manage their safeguarding provision. We recently held a SHMS training webinar with the presentation slides available here.

We would like to remind all clubs of the SHMS requirements prior to the start of the 2023 season, by 30 April:

• Clubmark Clubs: Be fully compliant on SHMS.
• Clubs with Junior sections and/or National Programmes: Ensure SHMS is fully reflective of your clubs position with volunteers and DBS checks in place
• All other affiliated clubs: Have provided details of your Club Administrator and be onboarded & populated SHMS

For further SHMS information and support,  please contact either Brian Hoyle or Ben Osborne.

DBS Update

In January 2023 the ECB updated their ECB DBS and renewal process. The key change for volunteers is an annual online request for applicants to re-confirm their details to ensure they are holding the most accurate information in relation to their role in cricket, including their club / county / organisation they volunteer / work for and their contact details.

Safeguarding training update

Safeguarding is everybody’s responsibility, so whatever your role in cricket, everyone should understand the importance of keeping children, young people and adults safe.

The ECB have updated their safeguarding training provision so that all volunteers in cricket can now access safeguarding training. If you are a Club Safeguarding Officer, Coach, Activator, Official, Committee Member, Captain or a parent there is a course available for you. For further information about all of the new ECB Safeguarding modules and how to book, please visit the Safeguarding section of our website.

Club Safeguarding Officer qualifications and courses

To be fully qualified in the role of CSO the following qualifications are required:

• ECB DBS: Valid for 1 year unless signed up to auto-renewal in which case check is updated annually by ECB. Volunteers are now required to confirm that they are still in regulated activity at their club on receipt of ECB auto-renewal email.
• ECB Safe Hands Workshop: Valid for 3 years. Face to Face module. Courses scheduled through Somerset Cricket Foundation.
• Safeguarding qualification: Safeguarding for Committee Members and Club Safeguarding Officers (valid for 3 years).

The above qualification replaces the previous Online Safeguarding Young Cricketers (SYC) module – Valid for 3 years.

Once the SYC qualification expires or at any point up to SYC expiring, CSO’s can complete the new Safeguarding for Committee Members and Club Safeguarding Officers qualification available in their e-learning account.

Safeguarding Pre-season Clinic – Thursday 23 March

We will be holding a first Safeguarding Pre-season Clinic on Thursday 23 March from 7.00pm – 8.00pm. The clinic will take place on zoom and all CSO’s are invited to register online.

There will be a recap of the information above, a chance to hear from and network with CSO’s at other clubs in Somerset and the opportunity to have your safeguarding questions answered ahead of the 2023 season.