LimeCulture Sponsors Safeguarding in Sport Conference in South Africa

Last weekend (25 & 26 May 2019) in Johannesburg, South Africa, the Jose Foundation hosted an international Safeguarding in Sport Conference in partnership with the South African Olympic Committee. LimeCulture was proud to be an official sponsor of this ground breaking event and delighted to attend to showcase the work we are currently doing to improve the safeguarding responses in sport, both within the UK and internationally.

The conference aim was to bring together a range of sport organisations, including national federations from a range of southern African countries, including South Africa, Kenya and Zambia, to help sport federations identify the policy, procedure and cultural requirements to ensure that sport provides a safe environment for participants.

The event was very well attended and had sessions delivered from the International Olympic Committee, Unicef Africa, International Paralympic Committee, Commonwealth Games Federation and many others including the University of Pretoria with an interest in safeguarding in sport.

LimeCulture’s Director of Safeguarding, Phil Doorgachurn, was there to deliver two sessions on behalf of LimeCulture. The first session Phil delivered was to talk about our organisation’s recent work with the International Fencing Federation to develop a safeguarding framework. “It was an honour and privilege to be invited to this fantastic event to talk about the work we have been doing with the International Fencing Federation in relation to safeguarding” says Phil. “Everyone agrees that safeguarding is so very important to embed in sport, yet there it’s not always easy to ensure that the culture of safeguarding is consistently embedded throughout that sport, allowing for robust responses, with policies and procedures in place to make sure that people can be safe when they participate in that sport. When you add the international dimension – different laws, different customs and cultures – it can seem like an unachievable task to ensure consistency of approach to safeguarding across a single sport in all regions, countries and continents’ explains Phil, whose successful career in sport has focused on safeguarding and improving the responses to safeguarding cases. “However, it certainly is achievable with the right level of commitment and drive to make it happen. Our recent work with the International Fencing Federation shows that with the development of shared goals and common ambitions, an international sport can come together to achieve an approach to safeguarding that is consistent, wherever you are in the world”.

Phil’s second delivery focused on how LimeCulture can assist other federations develop and embed a safeguarding culture. “There has been a shift in recent years to acknowledge that sport must be safe for everyone regardless of where in the world you are. It is simply not good enough for an international sport to provide a gold standard to safeguarding in one country, yet ignore safeguarding in another part of the world” explains Phil. ‘International sports are now recognising the importance of making sure that standards of safeguarding are the same everywhere. Of course, this is extremely challenging, but it can be achieved’ says Phil, whose role at LimeCulture has seen him work both nationally and internationally on improving safeguarding in sport. “Sport has the ability to connect to people across the world in a unique and positive way. The international reach of sport should be embraced – as sport has the ability to reach people everywhere and unite them in a common setting that breaks down differences and barriers in a way that very few other things can. With that comes a huge responsibility to make sure that people are safe wherever they are involved in that sport’ Explains Phil ‘At LimeCulture, we have been developing a method of bringing together international sports to focus on how they can achieve consistency in their approach to safeguarding, working with them to identify their ambitions to keeping people safe wherever they are, supporting them to build on their strengths, overcome challenges and find solutions that will ensure that safeguarding is central to the whole sport, in all territories. Its very exciting to be a part of this”.

The conference was attended by a range of organisations and professionals who have an interest in safeguarding children and vulnerable adults. Many of whom expressed concern about the extent of violence against women and children in some part of Africa. “Sport can play a vital role in tackling violence of this kind. From the prevention work that we have seen done so well with young men in sports like football, right through to identifying athletes who may be experiencing or at risk of violence and abuse, and responding to their needs to safeguard them’ explains Phil.

South Africa is in a good position as they are starting their safeguarding in sport journey and LimeCulture is delighted to be able to share their experience and knowledge to support South Africa to build on the good work that has been done elsewhere, and avoid some of the mistakes that have been made in this space.

Following the conference, there has been a general call to action with many attendees pledging to action safeguarding in their organisations. This includes South African Olympic Committee who have already formed a task group to address safeguarding which holds its first meeting today (Friday).

 

LimeCulture provides a range of consultancy services for sport, including bespoke support, organisational safeguarding reviews, and training & policy development. For further information contact Phil.Doorgachurn@limeculture.co.uk

8 more ISVA Services join Independent Accreditation Programme

Yesterday LimeCulture delivered an accreditation workshop to 8 new ISVA services joining their Independent Accreditation Programme. These ISVA services will begin working towards achieving the Quality Standards for ISVA Services with the aim of being independently accredited and awarded the Quality Mark.

 

The purpose of the accreditation workshop is to go through in detail with the new services exactly what the Independent Accreditation Programme is, what can be expected as part of the process and how it works” explains Charlotte Bond, one of LimeCulture’s Accreditation Managers.  Charlotte is responsible for working with the services and assessing the evidence submitted by the ISVA services that demonstrates they are achieving the Quality Standards for ISVA Services. “The Accreditation Workshops provides a great opportunity for us to go through each of the quality standards in turn and explain our process for monitoring whether the ISVA service is achieving it’ says Charlotte.

The Accreditation Workshop is structured in a way that allows the ISVA services to consider how they are are going to demonstrate compliance with each of the 20 individual standards that make up the Quality Standards for ISVA Services. “Essentially the workshop allows the ISVA services to focus on each standard, understand the requirements and then create an initial action plan of how they are going to demonstrate that they meet it” explains Charlotte. “It’s also a great forum for ISVA services to discuss how close their services currently are to achieving the Quality Standards or what more they have to do in order to achieve them’.

For some ISVA services, the Quality Standards are already being met and the workshop allows them to focus on what they need to demonstrate compliance. For other ISVA services who need to make changes to the way they deliver the ISVA service in order to meet the Quality Standard, it provides a good opportunity to discuss how they might bring about the required changes operationally. “The benefit of bringing ISVA services together in this way is that they can hear first hand from other ISVA services about how they operate, which is always useful for services who can really benefit from sharing ideas and sense checking solutions with their peers’ .

Attendance at the Accreditation Workshop is the 2nd stage of the 7-stage process that has been developed by LimeCulture’s Independent Accreditation Programme. The next stages require the ISVA service to demonstrate they are meeting the Quality Standards by providing evidence to support each standard and the indicators contained within them. Charlotte explains “Before we will accredit the ISVA service, and award the Quality Mark, ISVA services are required to submit a combination of documentary evidence and observational evidence via a site visit for each of the 20 standards. So it’s a really rigorous process that is kicked off at the accreditation workshop’.

LimeCulture is looking forward to working closely with the 8 ISVA services who have joined the programme. “We’re already working closely with 8 ISVA services –  who joined the programme on our first intake in March – and are already working towards accreditation. Its fantastic to see the enthusiasm there is from ISVA services to meet the Quality Standards for ISVA Services and its been a pleasure to meet the next 8 ISVA services today”.

LimeCulture launched the Quality Standards for ISVA Services at the National ISVA Conference in October 2018 after requests from a range of ISVA service providers and commissioners to develop standards that improve the consistency of ISVA service provision by setting a bench mark to drive standards. LimeCulture’s Independent Accreditation Programme was launched via an application process for ISVA services seeking to achieve the Quality Mark over December 2018 and January 2019. “We could not believe how many ISVA services applied to join the Independent Accrediation Programme, so have developed a model that allows ISVA services to join in scheduled intakes. The first 3 intakes were immediately filled, which demonstrates the importance that is being placed on the Quality Standards for ISVA Services and the independent Quality Mark” explains Charlotte.

Some of the ISVA Services who have joined the Independent Accreditation Programme are there because they want to demonstrate the quality of their ISVA service provision through the independent accreditation process that LimeCulture provides. For other ISVA services, their commissioners have required them to go through the process, while others are getting ahead of the curve in recognition that more commissioners are expecting their providers to achieve accreditation against these Quality Standards for ISVA Services. “At today’s Accreditation Workshop one of the ISVA services attended with their commissioner, which is absolutely fantastic’ says Charlotte “as it demonstrates the commitment of both commissioner and provider to the accreditation process”.

The next intake for ISVA services is now full. However, LimeCulture are now accepting applications from ISVA service who would like to join the  Independent Accreditation Programme for the Quality Standards for ISVA services in September 2019 or at other scheduled intakes throughout 2020. Please contact accreditation@limeculture.co.uk for further information.