ACT are offering a free trial of UK Coaching’s online Safeguarding Adults in Sport Courses to NGB and Active Partnership Designated Safeguarding Officers.
Richard Fletcher is ACT’s Safeguarding Adults in Sport Administrator. As he’s also a coach, we asked him to take UK Coaching’s course and share his thoughts.
From a grassroots safeguarding officer’s point of view, the UK Coaching eLearning course might appear a little intimidating at first.
There’s a lot of information about how comprehensive the course will be. This might make you feel as though you’re about to undertake some huge task.
However, after a quick sign-up process, I saw that UK Coaching have clearly laid out all the course materials in a way that made them easy to understand. There are five modules that you can take in your own time. For each, there are comprehensive details, reviews and questions tabs, should I need any help. I soon felt like I was in total control of everything I was doing.
You Learn Something Every Day…
The modules themselves provide comprehensive base level knowledge. It taught me some new things, and I work in safeguarding adults. This just goes to show that you should never dismiss any learning opportunity, even if you think you already have enough knowledge. And you should never feel too intimidated to try something new.
Module 1 helped set the scene, and a kind voice guided me through the process to the end. Every module used innovative techniques to help you learn. I dislike courses that simply require you to read information and regurgitate it verbatim. With this course, it really felt like UK Coaching were making an effort to keep you engaged throughout. In particular, there are some excellent sections midway through the course that I found kept me engaged when I might otherwise have flagged.
By the end of the course, I felt more knowledgeable about safeguarding adults in sport. The whole thing certainly felt like it was worth my time. And all of this was for free.
I will definitely recommend this course to my fellow coaches. Even if you’re currently coaching under 16s, knowledge of safeguarding adults is in large parts transferable. Understanding the difference between safeguarding children and adults has proven invaluable in my day to day coaching life.