[Louise]
Please be aware that this episode focuses on safeguarding and Ellie and Mark will reference their lived experience of abuse in football. If you're affected by anything you hear, there's some signposting to organisations who can help in the episode description.
[Jamie]
Hello and welcome to CoachCast by England Football Learning, the coaching podcast that brings you insight from people across the game. Today we're having an in-depth chat about safeguarding and why it is so important and to help us do that we're joined by Mark and Ellie, two grassroots coaches who are also representatives on the FA's Survivor Support and Safeguarding Advisory Group. Hi Mark, hi Ellie, thank you very much for joining us, welcome to the show. How are you both?
[Ellie]
Yeah good thanks, Good thanks.
[Louise]
Well thank you both for joining us, it's really great to have you on. Before we dive into the topic of safeguarding, can you tell us a little bit about yourselves? We'll go with you Ellie first.
[Ellie]
My name is Ellie, I'm from East London. I'm a grassroots football coach. I'm an ex-player, mainly grassroots, and I'm a survivor of abuse in football. I'm also a parent, a coach, and I work in children and family services.
[Mark]
Hi, I'm Mark. I've been a grassroots coach for around 15 years now, coaching teams from under fives up to under 21s, professionally working education I'm a dad to two great children and I also have lived experience of childhood sexual abuse in football.
[Louise]
Thanks for that. Can you tell us a little bit about the FA Advisory Group that you're both a part of?
[Ellie]
Yeah, so the FA Survivors Group was formed in 2018 following meetings between the FA and survivors of non-recent sexual abuse in football. It brings together footballers with lived experience alongside independent safeguarding professionals and specialist organisations. Some members of the group have waived their anonymity, some haven't.
[Mark]
The group inputs to the FA's preventative safeguarding approach and interventions such as the Play Safe campaign and the Parents' Course as well, responded to government consultations for example in relation to online harm so victims called a mandatory reporting. We support the FA but we're also there to challenge them as well.
[Jamie]
Brilliant thank you very much for that intro just before we do start on behalf of us here and everyone at England Football Learning, thank you very much for your time. We're really grateful for you joining us today to talk about safeguarding and also to share your stories and we appreciate this may be a really difficult thing to talk about and it takes a lot of courage to do so thank you very much for that. If it's okay with you both to start our deep dive into safeguarding, we feel a good place to start is by asking simply what is safeguarding and what comes to mind when you think about safeguarding?
[Mark]
Well, to me, the first thing that comes to mind is that it's everyone's responsibility.
[Jamie]
Can you put into context exactly what that means and also what it looks like for our listeners?
[Mark]
Yeah well like I said everyone has a role when I mean everyone I'm talking about coaches, parents, club welfare officers, committee members, players themselves, county FAs, everyone has a role to play in ensuring that players' welfare is at the centre of our thinking, decision-making and everyday practices. It can mean that we need to ensure that spaces are happy, safe and healthy, you know, and those spaces could be in person, so it could be on the training pitch, it could be match days, or spaces is in the digital world of social media.
[Louise]
Thanks Mark. So Ellie, is there anything else that springs to mind for you following on from what Mark said?
[Ellie]
You know, really clear communication. We need to set standards of behaviour. Every adult, every person involved has a responsibility to clearly communicate expectations and standards of behaviour. I think is what brings to mind first of all.
[Louise]
Yeah, definitely.
[Jamie]
Yeah, really good points. To kind of help us understand more about this all, in practice what does that look like for you?
[Ellie]
So we set the standards of expected behaviour with the players across the club where the players are people first, where welfare comes first and we communicate that clearly both you know around the club and player agreements, player expectations and standards, but we also communicate that in the way we all behave towards each other within the club.
[Louise]
If you've been made aware or noticed a safeguarding concern, what should you do next?
[Ellie]
Well, you don't ignore it. It's number one, you have a responsibility. You approach your club welfare officer, you can approach the county FA designated safeguarding officer, talk to the FA's central safeguarding team, the National Society of Protection of Children, the police, the local child protection agencies. I think the most important thing is that you reach out to people and you express your concerns because you have a responsibility to protect. Everybody has a responsibility to protect. So inaction and non-action is not really acceptable and there are plenty of ways to report. But I think we need cultural change, people to understand that it's their responsibility too.
[Louise]
Yeah, I guess things like having the courage to do that and kind of there's obviously ways that we can look into that help people to do that. But yeah, it's definitely a really important thing that people should do.
[Ellie]
On that notion of courage, it can feel really, really scary. Actually, it's really, really important that we do it and we do it every time. You know, sometimes it may turn out that our concerns are unfounded and that's got to be okay that we still check them and we've all got to support that that when there are concerns we check them out and we seek advice right or wrong. We're not besmirching anyone. We are ensuring that we are maintaining a safe environment for all.
[Jamie]
Thanks for that Ellie. So now we've heard about what safeguarding is, it would be good to provide our listeners with some top tips to help them make safeguarding part of their everyday practice. So Mark, do you want to go first and focus on youth football?
[Mark]
Yeah that's fine. I think it's really important for coaches to recognise that decisions we make on a day-to-day basis can really contribute to ensure that we have a strong safeguarding culture. We need to demystify safeguarding. It's not an add-on, it's not a bolt-on, it's part of what we do every single day. So I started to think about things that I would do on a weekly basis as a coach and making sure that my decisions I'm making, have got the child at the centre of them. So to begin with, the first one I thought about was communication. We've all got to communicate with our teams throughout the week. So how are we doing that? We'll probably use some form of social media to do that but then we need to start recognising who is in the group. Have we got certain protocols around the chat that's going on in that group? Is it just being kept to football? And the big one for under 18s is to definitely not have the children sitting in that group as well. At this point you should be communicating only with the parents. Another one is obviously you've got a game coming up at the weekend, you think about how you're gonna get there. You know, the best practice is really to not take any children in your car with you, but you know, we live in the real world. We've always got parents who can't make it, but they still like the child to come along and play. So really as a coach you've got to start thinking about both safeguarding the child and safeguarding yourself really. So it's having protocols around lifts, so if you're taking someone to a game you're always making sure that that child is in the back of your car. If your child's going, your child is in the front and you're communicating that with maybe your partner coach, you say, just to let you know, I'm taking Billy to the game today. So again, it's having strong protocols in place and even giving that information to parents, because it might be parents taking other children as well, just so they're following the same guidelines that you're doing as well to make sure that they've got those other children in the back of the car. And we've all had that situation haven't we, where we've come to an end of a training session or a game and somebody's not been picked up but everything's telling us we shouldn't take that child home because we've been drilled into us for safeguarding that that child. No, it's not good practice to take a child home alone. At that point I think you just have to do a dynamic risk assessment to think well that's actually giving more dangerous for the child to be left here. So at that point I would take the child, again I'd make sure they're in the back and I would be letting other people know what's happened and what was happening. Another thing, and again a lot of these you'll be doing on a day-to-day basis without even thinking that they're actually contributing towards safeguarding. You turn up to a game and you're looking at the weather. Is it too hot? Is it too cold? Not just thinking about the players but also thinking about those substitutes who are going to be on the sidelines. So again that's a consideration you need to make. Then you arrive to the pitch. The first thing I always do is a walk through the pitch, making sure that the pitch is safe, there's nothing on there that's of any hazard. You're also checking the goal posts to make sure they're fixed and in place. And then hopefully your players will start turning up. So another top tip is really to make sure that you greet every player on arrival. It could be a handshake or a fist pump, whatever they find more comfortable. That's really important because that's how you start to build those positive relationships. You're checking in with the child. Once you've coached them for a number of weeks, you get to know who's all right and who's not all right on arrival. You can pick up a lot of things about whether they sound a little bit unwell. We all know parents want their child to play regardless. And sometimes as a coach, you've got to make tough decisions to say, in my opinion, I don't think they're well enough to play today. So again, that's just another little tip. Then you've got your usual things, so you look for shin pads. Then you think about your subs. Some teams have policies where they do equal playing time, some don't. But again, if you're someone who doesn't do equal playing time, you need to be thinking about how long they sat on the sidelines and again the weather conditions might come into that as well and also the well-being of the child if they're only getting a couple of minutes each week. Then I turn to actually myself and how I conduct myself because We all know as a coach, we've all got other jobs. We might have turned up to a training session after a long day's work. We aren't feeling quite stressed. It's quite easy to take that out on the children. We've got to make sure that we turn up really positive. We've got to model that good behaviour to get that behaviour back from the children, both in training sessions and in game time because we know a lot of the time teams reflect their manager. I've seen that a lot in grassroots football. And then finally, our last top tip I think is about feedback. How do you provide feedback to your children after games? It's really easy to start with the negatives. I think it's massively important to start with positive for the feedback. And sometimes think about where you're providing that feedback. I always used to do it in front of the parents because then I could model providing good quality feedback to the children, focusing on the positives rather than negatives. And let's be honest, there's always negatives after the game, but it's how you deal with them and it's maybe saying things like, I noticed in the game today, first touches were not great. No, we're going to work on that in training next week. We're actually identifying the negatives, but we're also giving a bit of a solution for them as well. And we're letting the children lead the game in a positive mindset. So again, all those, most people listening to this might say, I'll do all that. That's great. If you do, that's great. And on their own, they just probably consider it on their own, but you put all them actions together, them decisions with a child at the heart, and that's how you develop a strong culture. That word culture can be difficult at times. Culture just means what do you do, what are you doing, what are your actions. All those together create a strong culture of safeguarding.
[Louise]
That's really great and I think they're all like you say really practical things that people might be doing already but it's just good to think about how those things actually shape the culture and safeguarding as a whole as well. How about the adult game? Is there any top tips that you can share to make safeguarding part of everyday practice there?
[Ellie]
Yeah, most definitely. You want to build a really strong safe culture where abusers will not thrive. And it does start with recognising players as people and their wellbeing first in the adult game, you know, much like Mark just described there. And also, I think we all need to remember, open age football, we have children. We have 16 and 17 year olds playing in what we consider adult football and you know they're legally children, developmentally children and we need to you know adjust to that. But I think from my top tips my top one would most definitely back Mark's ending there about building that culture. Also discussing, communicating and living the standards and behaviours that are expected for everybody. Ensuring that there's practical stuff, so under 18s they should have a choice where they change and shower at all times. Ensure that under 18s have someone that they can talk to, an adult welfare officer, separate from the powerful positions within the team. Recognise that by the very nature of the role of coach and the team selecting coaches, they have a lot of power and that's why coaches are legally seen as in a position of trust like teachers. So for example, it's illegal for coaches to engage in sexual activity with players that they are coaching. However, that position of trust stuff really, really needs to be absorbed by coaches, I think, if we're going to see significant cultural changes in football. We have to set clear policies about travel and overnight accommodation, and we have to be really, really clear about our expectations for coaches, players, spectators, about respect to each other, to everyone, towards referees. You know, it's about participants in football being acknowledged that they are people before they are players, referees, coaches, that we need to work together to ensure that the environment stays healthy and the culture stays healthy.
[Jamie]
Thanks Ellie, really important points there for everybody to be taking away. What are the signs that a club or team have a healthy safeguarding culture then? Both yourself and Mark have talked about that culture. So what should our listeners be hearing at training and match day in your opinion?
[Ellie]
Lots of smiles and laughter, lots of success. I think there's a healthy safeguarding culture. There's a healthy competitive culture and people tend to excel in those cultures.
[Mark]
Yeah, I'd agree with everything you said there, definitely with the happy smiles there both on and off the pitch but also probably provide an environment where children are able to ask questions and where this happens children are actively listened to and children's feedback and opinions shape future practices as a club and actively see coaches making decisions that are in the best interest of the children.
[Ellie]
Yeah absolutely and I would like to see that in the adult game as well.
[Louise]
Yeah it's important to have it all around isn't it. So we've talked about what a good safeguarding culture looks and sounds like but we want to delve into why this is important. So could you talk a little bit about a scenario or two where the culture isn't child-centred and isn't great, just so we've got an example?
[Mark]
Yeah, I think we've all been around games where we've witnessed poor behaviour both on and off the pitch. I've witnessed coaches in youth football displaying aggressive behaviour which in turn has often resulted in their players. And then quite often the parents also becoming aggressive. This has then massively impacted the children on the pitch, the quality of the game and a lot of the time the referee we need to consider really a lot of the time when they're under 18, their children. Now where this happens it creates a really toxic environment. Now I'm pleased to see that the FA has recognised this with the Enough is Enough campaign and the fact that point deductions will come in next season for individual and teams I think is a massive step forward and hopefully will have a big impact across the game. You know at the beginning I said it's everybody's responsibility with that scenario I've just mentioned above there, it's really important that you as a coach, even as the opposition team, you've got a duty there if you're seeing that happen. You need to challenge the coach. You also need to challenge your own parents at times if they're displaying any of those behaviours which can be quite tough. And you could also be reporting that behaviour, even of an opposition team, to your welfare officer or the local county FA as well. It's not good enough to be a bystander when we're witnessing this type of behaviour.
[Ellie]
Yeah I mean to the question of why is this so important there's so much I'd want to say and so much that I've witnessed in terms of poor behaviour both when I was young and you know and now and I think that football needs to take a lot more responsibility. The sort of low level poor behaviour all the way up to the worst of the abuse that we've seen in football. I think we need to understand it's all connected and have a zero tolerance approach to poor behaviour in football. We are all responsible and you know as Mark was saying about bystanders there, you know, don't stand by and allow it. It's our game.
[Mark]
Yeah, it's
[Jamie]
a really powerful point there like don't stand by, don't be a bystander, like everybody's responsibility and yeah it is our game. It's a game for all and a game that should be enjoyed by all. So yeah, don't be a bystander. We need to make the game better for everybody. Now, as well as being grassroots coaches, at the start of the episode, you introduced yourselves as people with lived experiences of non-recent child sexual abuse in football. So we know that you both have direct experiences of the risks and the impact that poor safeguarding cultures can lead to. Are you okay and willing to share some insight into your stories at all?
[Ellie]
Yeah, I mean I had horrific experiences as a child. He should not have been working in football. If he'd been DBS checked, he would not have been working in football. There was a quite a normal culture of people driving, coaches offering to give lifts, taking kids to games, taking kids to away games. Nobody really questioned it. You know, he was a popular guy in the community. I didn't really have much of a chance in that scenario. And I think what's happened since then, in my experience, is that was a hugely traumatic event in my life that had a huge impact on my mental health for many years on my whole family and that was really really difficult and shaped my life and stole football from me to a large extent. So to come back into football when I was a bit older and then soon after that the story to break if you like on the Victoria Derby Show about how prolific abuse was in football and how offenders were getting access. Prolific offenders up and down the country getting access to young people, children through football. It's absolutely shocking, you know, shook me to my core and reawakened that trauma in me And I'm really happy to say that the FA had a response to that, that has enabled me to come back into football to some extent and to start thinking about solutions rather than just the tragedy of what was stolen from me. So I think if we think about the environment that I was in then in the late 80s, early 90s, obviously no one cared about women's football then. I mean, we did. We had a society, it's slightly different, I think. But the power that that man had was immense. You know, he was a gatekeeper to the game. So now I think we really need to think in football about power, the distribution of power, who's got gatekeeping to football and how we can keep it safe. For whatever reasons, sport, the Scouts, churches, lots of organisations like that fell through the gap when from the 1989 Children's Act onwards when we started to develop processes for ensuring that you know we can't necessarily stop abuse but we can certainly protect from it in football. We can protect from it better in many areas of our community and it's about time that football stepped up and I think that since the FA's response to the Sheldon enquiry we've started to work towards making those changes and instilling them. There's been huge changes in children's football but I think there needs to be much more. One of the recommendations from Sheldon, I think one of the most important recommendations, was about cultural change in football and that's about people stopping thinking it doesn't happen here, it doesn't happen to me and sadly a lot of people do still think that and we need to stop making it about the personal and just think about what structures can I put in place, how can I disperse power, how can we consider the needs of these children and of these people and as Mark has reiterated throughout this, the needs of the child come first And I think the same can be said with this massive explosion in women's football, that women coming into a male-dominated sport come in with some vulnerabilities that we need to recognise, that the distribution of power within football is not democratic, it's not dispersed fairly, or equally, or safely? So we've still got a bit of work to be done.
[Louise]
Thank you so much for sharing that with us and just really important that you were able to share those messages with everybody to make those changes, so thank you for doing that. Mark, was there anything that you want to share with us?
[Mark]
Yeah, thanks Ellie for that. A lot of my story, when you speak to a lot of other survivors, they do mirror each other quite alarmingly. There was a lot of bad practices happening at the club where it happened, as Ellie alluded to, away trips, overnight stays, lifts, being left on your own quite a lot, but a lot of gifts being given across the team, favourites within the team. But it was often an area where children were not listened to and even if they were listened to I don't think we had the language at the time to actually to actually talk about it. You know society, thankfully it's changed a lot since then. I think children have the language I think it's still just as difficult to talk but I think they do have the language now. As Ellie said power came come down to a lot of It was a star maker track record of putting a number of players through to the professional game. And that power was used to control, which led obviously to forms of abuse for multiple victims. I'd say since then, I fell out of love with football for quite a long time after it. I got myself back in through Grass roots really, coaching. And like I say, after the Victoria Derbyshire episode, things unraveled a little bit and the FA and the FA group came at a really good time for me. They wanted to make sure that something good came out of something so bad. And I think we've got a duty now as survivors to challenge and to make sure this never happens again. Like Ellie said, we're not going to cut it out completely, but we're part of a group that's helping to reduce opportunity. And I think that's the FA need to be applauded because they are at the forefront. If you look at a lot of other sports, I'm afraid there are gaps in a lot of other sports where this possibly could still be happening. I like what Ellie said about there's a lot of people saying it won't happen to me. These predators look for opportunity and where there's opportunity they take it regardless. So yeah we're here today when we're on an FA group really to, you know, I'm a coach and every two years you get that email about you need to do your safeguarding course. I know a lot of coaches and they'll say, "I've got to do that safeguarding course. What's it got to do with me? I'm a football coach." We need to make sure that we learn from the errors of the past.
[Louise]
Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, Mark, and kind of giving us your thoughts on where we are with things now and what things need to change. Was there anything else that you want to cover in this part?
[Ellie]
I suppose just to add about how we respond to when people do report and how we respond and how we make that environment. In the wake of the super brave revelations that were made by certain players, Andy Woodward and Steve Walters and those players that spoke up and the FA's response by setting up the helpline because what I found out is that although my perpetrator had been found not guilty in my case back in 1990, he did go on to be convicted. His abuse escalated, you know, and he continued working in football, but he did go on to be convicted. Having a kind of ending in that way was really, really important for me and it enabled me to be able to engage with the FA in them thinking about how we could try and make this game safe for all and not a place of trauma, but a place of joy, which is what football should be and was to me pre age 12 and is again now.
[Jamie]
Thank you very much for sharing both of your stories. It must be really difficult to relay that and we really appreciate that. You've shown so much courage to say that and it's great that you're both back in the game after a long time and yeah, thank you very much. Really appreciate that and the work that you're doing as well even coming on this podcast this is really helpful for people to listen to and we really appreciate you talking through your experiences and passing on your top tips today so thank you very much for that. Building on the back of that, who can play a part in making sure safeguarding measurements are there and making sure that there's a safe environment now?
[Mark]
Like I said, it's everyone's responsibility but the culture must be set by the clubs and the team officials, you know, such as the coaches. Both myself, Ellie and other members of the FA Advisory Group, we've been really pleased with the Play Safe campaign last year. It reached over 1 million people, right from the Premier League down to grassroots. Anyone watching Sky Sports on that day would have noticed all the bright red Play Safe badges, pin badges on there. And the strap line this year is everyone, everywhere, every time, which I think really just encompasses what we've been saying through this podcast is it is everyone's responsibility. It's not an add-on. It's something that we do every single day and it rolls into our practices. And it's not just this one special weekend that we have every week, every year, and then we forget about it for 12 months.
[Ellie]
Yeah, and I think the contributions from England Learning, it's everybody's responsibility. But the parenting course and the FA Safeguarding Awareness course, and the coaches, the safeguarding courses, and creating a culture where it's alright for parents to ask if the coach has had their DBS and if they're up to date and can check, it's really, really important. I mean, I think there's a big role for parents in this, do you, Mark?
[Mark]
Yeah, there are, you know, especially with the parent safeguarding course, You know, the course, it covers what they should be expected to be in place at their child's football setting. You know, what's expected of parents and their behaviour. What are the signs and indicators of abuse, including grooming. I'm a parent, I've also got lived experience. I cannot stress how important this course is for everybody, to give everybody the right information because I still feel deep down that football is still an area where parents can be blinded by the bright lights of football and the rewards that potentially come with that. It's really important we get as many parents as we can to do this course to improve everybody's understanding of safeguarding.
[Ellie]
Yeah, and then of course there's the new player welfare course coming out looking at cultures in adult football, or open age football as I really ought to call it, you know, remembering that there are 16 and 17 year olds in that. And yeah, this sits alongside the safeguarding adults course online and you know I would urge everybody to do that. Club secretaries, committee members, participants in every sense of the word are responsible for safeguarding and for ensuring that we maintain a healthy culture so avoid creating a space where perpetrators will be attracted to. I think it's really important that coaches, managers, welfare officers, committee members and everybody understands that they're responsible.
[Jamie]
You're absolutely right and yeah just to reiterate we have a suite of courses available for people in the game so whether you're a coach, a referee, first aider, welfare officer, a committee member or even a parent, you know and some of these courses are required for certain roles but many are free and open to all and we'll certainly put a link in our episode description so you can check them out so do look for that and see what's available and for what you can take part in.
[Louise]
So finally, looking back at everything that we've discussed today, can you summarise the key top tips on safeguarding that you want coaches to take away from this episode?
[Mark]
I think number one is to make sure that every decision you make as a coach, as a child, at the centre, remember your small actions on their own have little significance but collectively they create a strong safeguarding culture.
[Ellie]
Yeah and get involved in this upcoming weekend, 30th of September to the 1st of October. You know, it's the Support the Play Safe weekend. Play Safe is a big push to try and bring our understanding and appreciation and collective sort of safeguarding responsibilities to become sort of a norm at football. It's not normal at the moment and it's becoming so, so be part of the solution and get involved.
[Mark]
And finally, I'd urge all the coaches out there to actively encourage as many parents or carers to do the free online course. It's only 40 minutes but it could make a real difference. As Ellie said before, we heard a lot of, it won't happen to us, it won't happen at our club. We need to be all better educated around these subjects and start by completing this course.
[Jamie]
Yeah, really good message to end on there. Like just that 40 minutes can help make the game safe for all and it really should be. Mark, Ellie, thank you very much for your time, both of you. It's been great having you on Coachcast and thank you very much for sharing your stories. It's again incredibly brave of you to do and your honest and open communication and discussion with us today could really help someone who's tuning into this so we can't thank you enough for that So yeah, thank you very much for your time today. We really appreciate it
[Ellie]
No worries, thank you
[Jamie]
Right, well that is all we have time for today but we do just want to say that if you have been affected by today's episode, we've put some important links in our episode description that you may find useful. There you will also be able to find the transcription for this episode and all the links to our platforms such as the England football community. This is where you can post your coaching questions for us to discuss on the podcast or just simply to connect with loads of wonderful coaches.
[Louise]
Yep, we'd love to help you out with your coaching questions so please do check it out. We'll be back soon with another episode of Coachcast so if you haven't already, hit subscribe to make sure you don't miss an episode. From all of us at England Football Learning, thanks for listening.