ESFA Safeguarding resources for U18s and their parents/carers
Welcome to our designated page for ESFA players. The Association has hundreds of thousands of children and young people taking part in competitive fixtures through their school, their district or their county association each season. We want to make sure that each and every one of them and/or their parents or carers have access to our safeguarding information – to help them to feel safe when taking part in the sport that they love
What is safeguarding?
Protecting your health and well-being is really important to us, we call it “˜safeguarding’.
We want to make sure all of our players are safe while they are involved in schools’ football, because everyone has the right to feel safe, wherever they are.
Safeguarding children while they’re taking part in footballing activity is everyone’s responsibility.
We have put together some documents that you can read to help you to understand more about safeguarding, why it’s important and what you can do if you need to get help –
ESFA safeguarding guide for primary age players
ESFA safeguarding guide for secondary age players
Download your own safeguarding card
You can download and print your own safeguarding card and write on the information for your local team or Association.
Please press select the multiple option when printing for correct sizing.
ESFA Stay Safe in Schools’ Football
Stay Safe in Schools’ Football is the English Schools’ FA’s safeguarding campaign, aimed at raising awareness of the actions that players, teachers and volunteers can take to keep themselves safe when playing schools’ football. The campaign, which was launched in 2021, has focused on creating and sharing content specifically for players, to help educate them on the actions they can take and to give them a guide to help them understand the safeguarding processes in place.
In 2022/23 the ESFA are looking to push these messages to a wider audience and ensure they make schools’ football a safe and enjoyable environment for everyone. The ESFA is encouraging participants to stay up to date with the campaign messaging on their social media channels ( @schoolsfootball) and help share this messaging with everyone involved in schools’ football activity.
Get Involved
To kick off the campaign for the 2022/23 season, the Association is asking primary and secondary schools across the country to challenge their students to create some “Stay Safe In Schools’ Football” videos to help educate their peers on the actions they can take to ‘stay safe’. These videos will be shared on the ESFA’s social media channels and via their website, helping to spread the message far and wide.
The ESFA have put together some helpful scripts and a video guide to support you and your pupils and provide you with everything you need to create your own “Stay Safe In Schools’ Football” videos and where to submit them.
We will continue to add resources to help you to understand safeguarding, how it affects you and how you can use it to help others and yourself.
Keep checking back to our page for further updates and follow @SchoolsFootball on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook for updates and all things schools’ football!