University of Nottingham student Bridget Tunney is currently volunteering to help The Ann Craft Trust promote Safeguarding Adults Week.
In this post and podcast, she introduces herself and discusses a University of Nottingham safeguarding in sport campaign.
I have been on this placement for just under a month now. Working with The Ann Craft Trust team has been excellent.
What has made this placement truly valuable is the agency I have been given. I have had the opportunity to take what interests me the most about the Ann Craft Trust to contribute towards raising awareness of key safeguarding issues.
For instance, as I play a sport myself, I was intrigued by their work on safeguarding adults in sport.
I participated in the Rugby Minds campaign at the University of Nottingham last year. This campaign aims to improve the welfare and culture in the men’s and women’s rugby teams. When I learned about The Ann Craft Trust’s #SaferCultureSaferSport campaign, I saw a lot of parallels.
I recently recorded a podcast with Nicola Dean, a safeguarding adults in sport manager at the Ann Craft Trust, in which we discussed the Rugby Minds campaign.
You can listen to my podcast below:
What is Rugby Minds?
Rugby Minds was started by Rei Crooks, a former member of The University of Nottingham Rugby Team. She became our assistant coach last year, and set up the campaign to improve the welfare and culture of University rugby.
The Rugby Minds campaign has raised awareness and promoted values which can, and have, impacted all sport cultures.
The Ann Craft Trust’s #saferculturesafersport campaign defines a safe sporting culture with a three step framework: Listen, Learn and Lead.
As I discussed with Nicola in my podcast, the Rugby Minds campaign follows this framework. Their workshops and video content are based on surveys and interviews with team members about their personal concerns.
So we listened to women’s firsthand accounts of their experiences, and learned that many women experience a lack of support. From this, Rugby Minds lead a social media campaign exploring steps anyone can take to change this lack of support.
So the Rugby Minds campaign has acknowledged the discrimination and disadvantages certain people experience in sport. They are now committed to raising awareness so that we can work together to create a more inclusive club culture.
This is also what The Ann Craft Trust aims to achieve with their safeguarding adults in sports campaign.
#SaferCultureSaferSport – Creating a Safer Culture in Your Organisation
Improving your culture starts with recognising it.
For our Safer Culture Safer Sport campaign, we put together a range of resources to help organisations talk about culture, learn more from good examples and how to evaluate and improve:
Talking about Culture: Conversation Starters
Culture in Clubs & Groups: Self Assessment