Traveling away
If you club organizes trips away for your people, the following section will provide practical advice.
Every year many young players travel away for training and matches. Sometimes these involve just a day trip; increasingly they involve longer excursions within the country or abroad. Inevitably, there are additional implications for best practice and for ensuring the safety and welfare of young players away from home.
When planning an event away from home or club, you need to consider these points:
• Has the club, organization or team fully implemented policies and procedures for ensuring the welfare of children in terms of the:
• Recruitment of volunteers?
• Reporting procedures?
• Observance of the Code of Conduct?
• Where possible ensure that every member of the club staff involved in the trip has successfully completed the relevant child protection training, for example, The FA offers both a distance learning pack and a three-hour ‘Best Practice’ workshop.
• Has a risk assessment for the trip been conducted? No amount of planing can guarantee a safe and and incident-free trip, but good planing and attention to safety measures can reduce the likelihood of serious incidents. Check travel, venue, staffing, weather/environment, sleeping and catering arrangements for potential hazards, and put safety and emergency procedures in place.
• Is there sufficient insurance cover? Consider:
• Public liability including civil liability
• Personal accident which should include a no-fault pay out.
• Travel insurance including necessary provision for accident, breakdown and recovery if you are using self-drive vehicles.
• Medical cover including repatriation expenses.
• Are visas required? Do you need to consider any cultural factors (e.g. dos and don’ts), environmental conditions (e.g. heat, insects) or medical issues (e.g. malaria tablets, vaccination)?
• What staffing is needed? The staff-to-player ratio will be determined by:
• Risk assessment.
• The age of players-1:10 staff-to-player ratio is recommended for players over 11, more staff are recommended with younger children whether single or mixed sex. If mixed, there should be at least one male and one female.
• Any special need – more staff are needed if there are players with medical needs or disabilities.
• Have the role and responsibilities been clarified? Who has ultimate responsibility? The coach often has ultimate responsibility, the team manager is normally responsible for supervision and the driver should not have other duties while traveling.
• Is there a club/home contact? This person should hold copies of itinerary, all players’ home addresses, venue contacts, and medical and consent forms.
• Have ground rules for the players been drawn up? It will be necessary to agree some rules during traveling and at the venue, particularly where there is remote supervision (for example, on shopping trip, after an event, during social activities). A credit-card sized ‘safe away card’ that can be carried by each player at all times is strongly recommended.