Member protection

Harassment or abuse in sport can have devastating effects not only for the individuals involved, but also for the sporting organisation. It can result in legal liability, low morale, higher turnover of volunteers and long-term damage to the club’s image and reputation.

To prevent these destructive and harmful outcomes from occurring, your club needs to implement and maintain practices and procedures which:

• protect your club’s members – including athletes, administrators, coaches and officials - physically and emotionally from harassment
• endeavour to get the right people involved in your organisation ie good recruitment
• protect your member’s personal information.

Member protection is also about effective risk management of two of the biggest risks to your club – losing participants and harming members.

How to protect your members

The first step to ensure adequate member protection at your club is to develop a member protection policy. Depending on the size of your club, you can then consider appointing a member protection information officer to administer the policy and take responsibility for all member protection issues.

The benefits of this approach are:

• it is an effective deterrent to harassment
• it promotes awareness of appropriate behaviour
• it ensures that complaints can be dealt with quickly, responsible and effectively
• it is often a requirement of funding organisations
• it promotes compliance with the law.

Developing a member protection policy

Before you start, check with your state body about requirements for member protection rights and responsibilities.

A membership protection policy is one of your club’s risk management tools. It will help your club address issues of harassment, sexual abuse and inappropriate behaviour.

The policy should be simple, easy to read and accessible to everyone. Before you begin, check with your state or governing body. They may have particular member protection requirements that your club is legally obliged to adhere to.

If your club is non-affiliated, develop your own policy on expected appropriate behaviour for your club.

A typical policy may include:

• Preventive measures – outline the procedures that will prevent this type of event occurring in the first place such as recruitment procedures and screening
• Standards of expected or inappropriate behaviour – this should include comprehensive examples of forms of inappropriate behaviour eg sexual harassment, abuse and discrimination
• Offences – clearly define what type of conduct amounts to an offence
• Complaints/investigation process – this should include who can make a complaint, to whom the complaint is made and who will investigate the complaint
• Hearing process – detail the process for hearing a complaint
• Penalties – include details of penalties for breach of the policy
• Appeal process – this should reflect the hierarchy of the organisation.
  

Member protection information officers

Depending on the size of your club, you could consider appointing a designated Member Protection Information Officer to be the central contact for any concerns or information about harassment, sexual abuse or inappropriate behaviour.

A member protection information officer would ensure your club handled complaints in an appropriate and consistent manner. They do not investigate complaints but help the person with the concern to deal with what has happened.

Appointing someone in the role who is approachable, accessible and able to maintain confidentiality ensures people in your club have someone supportive to go to with their concerns and to access information.

Member protection information officer assessment

To become a member protection information officer you need to complete an Australian Sports Commission approved two day training course. The NSW Sports Federation offers this course and the Australian Sports Commission has more detail on the training and education of member protection information officers.

Child Protection Infoline

For any child protection issues contact the NSW Sport and Recreation’s Infoline 1300 366 407.

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