To help Club Safeguarding Officers in their role, we have drafted the below document library, which contains guidance notes that take mandatory expectations from the RFU Safeguarding Policy and Regulation 21, and supplements them with additional information and advice that clubs may find useful. It is recommended that these guidance notes are adopted by clubs, unless exceptional circumstances arise. While the guidance notes are written for Club Safeguarding Officers, everyone involved in rugby can benefit from reading them.
The RFU is very proud to have a dedicated network of Club Safeguarding Officers (CSOs) across Rugby. All CSOs work extremely hard in supporting safe and enjoyable environments for all. The majority of this network consists of volunteers, and we want to do all we can to support volunteers in their role.
If you are ever in need of further support in your role, please contact your Constituent Body Safeguarding Manager, who should have contacted you when you began your role. If they have not contacted you to introduce themselves, please see the list of Constituent Bodies website links, so you can get in touch.
If you are unable to contact your CBSM, or need further advice on an issue or query, please contact the RFU Safeguarding team.
The Club Safeguarding Officer guidance library is split into three sections:
Safer Recruitment
Safeguarding concerns
- Sharing concerns guidance
- Collaboration between safeguarding and discipline
- When to involve the police
- Information for those who have had a concern raised against them
Best practice
- Safeguarding considerations for changing rooms
- Parental attendance at rugby
- Physical intervention
- Protocol for contact in rugby
- Encouraging positive behaviour
- Photography and use of imagery
We also recognise the large requirement for Club Safeguarding Officers to be fluent in the Game Management System (GMS). To help CSOs with this, we have also put together a how-to-guide for GMS.
