As the end of 2025 draws near, the Safeguarding Adults in Sport team take a moment to reflect on all that’s been achieved in 2025.
2025 was a big year for The Ann Craft Trust Safeguarding Adults in Sport Team!
Below we’ll explore some highlights from the year.
But before we begin, at the start of the year our colleague Nicola Dean sadly passed away following a long illness. Our thoughts remain with Nicola’s family and friends. You can read our tribute to Nicola here.
Safeguarding Adults in Sport Framework – reaching milestones and looking ahead
In March we acknowledged that more than 50% of Active Partnerships have gone through the Safeguarding Adults in Sport Framework process. Since then, The Framework submissions have continued to roll in, so this is currently a huge focus for the team.
The Framework provides a fantastic way for partner organisations to delve into their safeguarding culture, responsibilities, policies, and procedures. As the current Uniting the Movement funding period will close in March 2027, next year will see a real push for all participating organisations to complete their Framework submission.
To start your Safeguarding Adults in Sport Framework Journey, contact Sarah Nolan, who will book in your submission date: sarah.nolan@nottingham.ac.uk.
We are also running a number of Framework peer support sessions throughout 2026:
10 years of Safeguarding Adults in Sport
2025 also marked 10 years since Sport England first began funding a Safeguarding Adults in Sport role at The Ann Craft Trust.
Here’s a little glimpse at some of this year’s achievements which may give some idea of the current scope and scale of our work:
- Opportunities to connect – We ran lead Safeguarding Officer Forums for NGBs, Active Partnerships, and the wider sports and activity sector. The latter met in-person for the first time in June. You can read more about the day here.
- Extensive training – We delivered multiple Safeguarding Adults in Sport training sessions at Board, Advanced, and Essential levels.
- Working in partnership – We worked with UK Sport and the Child Protection in Sport Unit (CPSU) to create a new Safeguarding in the High-Performance System Forum. The first forum took place online at the end of June. Over 40 people attended from a variety of Olympic and Paralympic sports and partner organisations. We ran a second forum in November, this time in person. Both forums provided the opportunity to network, to share experiences, to learn from each other, and to stay up to date about new developments.
- Continued Projects – In our 2024 year-end roundup, we discussed our work in developing an updated Safeguarding Adults Technical Specialism with CIMSPA. After 12 months of hard work, this is now available on the CIMSPA website.
You can read our full reflections on 10 years in Safeguarding Adults in Sport here.
The team expands again
In October, the Sport Team welcomed a new Safeguarding Adults in Sport Manager, Hannah Shah. Hannah joined us the week of the Ann Craft Trust team meeting, which saw all colleagues gather at the University of Nottingham office, partly to chat and eat cake!
After a few months in the role, Hannah is really finding her feet. She looks forward to 2026, when she’ll be connecting with Active Partnerships and bringing her expertise in domestic abuse to projects within the team.
Read more about Hannah’s background here.
Safeguarding Adults Week and Conference
As ever, Safeguarding Adults Week and the annual Safeguarding Adults Conference were big highlights for the Sport Team.
In addition to our Safeguarding Adults Conference in Nottingham, this year Jodi Evans helped organise a two-day event in Wales to mark their National Safeguarding Week.
We’re already making plans for Safeguarding Adults Week 2026! It will run 16 – 20 November, and our annual conference will take place on Wednesday 18 November.
What sort of topics and themes would you like us to focus on next year? Take this short survey to share your thoughts.
Thank You
As always, as the year comes to a close, we’d like to thank our safeguarding partner, the CPSU. Much of our work is a joint effort to guide sports organisations to best practice in both safeguarding adults and children, and it is so important that we continue this work together.
Our valued associate trainers have also continued to offer fantastic support to the sport managers in delivering training, so another year of gratitude from us! We’d also like to thank The University of Nottingham. Plus our funders, Sport England, Sport Wales, and UK Sport, for their ongoing support.
And finally, we’d like to thank YOU for continuing to support The Ann Craft Trust! If we all work together, we can make sport safer and more inclusive for everyone.