Sport Welfare Officer

Job Title : Sport Welfare Officer

Department : Strategy

Reports to : Strategic Lead for Partnerships and Workforce

Salary Banding : £31,500 – £33,500

Location : Flexible working with a dedicated office space in Winsford, Cheshire

Duration : Fixed-term contract until November 2027 (in line with Sp. Eng. Funding award)

About Active Cheshire

Active Cheshire is a value led organisation who lives and breathes our core values of: Inclusivity, Collaboration, Integrity, Passion, Innovation.

Our vision is to see more people, more active, more often living longer, happier, healthier lives. We will connect sport, physical activity, and movement opportunities across Cheshire & Warrington to provide fairer and greater access for all, whilst tackling health inequalities. As a funded Sport England System Partner, we will lead the physical activity system across Cheshire & Warrington

Nature & Scope

To support local sports clubs and community organisations to provide safer environments which lead to inclusive, improved experiences for children and adults. By sharing best practice, clubs will develop an effective welfare culture and help narrow inequalities to help achieve our Active Cheshire vision of ‘More People More Active More Often.’

The Sport Welfare Officer (SWO) will work with NGBs and their local clubs to promote good practice and safe sport on a local level. The Network of 63 SWO’s across England is now well established and details of the network can be found here.

The SWO will collate data and insight from emerging safeguarding and welfare themes and share these with partners across the sport and physical activity system. NGBs who are system partners of Sport England will be offered support to begin with, and NGBs who are not Sport England system partners and sports without a recognised NGB will be considered during delivery.

The SWO will provide support for the welfare and safeguarding of children and young people and adults. The SWO will be successful when Club Welfare Officers feel supported and provide a consistent, best practice welfare experience for participants.

You will champion national safeguarding campaigns with local clubs, for example Keeping Your Child Safe in Sport week (inside sport) and Safeguarding Adults Week (outside sport). You will also hold relationships with statutory services e.g. Local Authority Designated Officers and Safeguarding Partnerships (outside sport). You will raise awareness of safeguarding with parents/carers and participants either inside or outside sport.

Accountabilities (not exhaustive)

• Lead on the promotion of children and young peoples, and adults’ welfare within the sports and physical activity sector, advocating and influencing national governing bodies of sport, sports clubs and community organisations on the importance of embedding safe practices in their settings.
• Lead the provision of training (or organising training for) for club welfare officers (prioritising new Club Welfare Officers) from a range of sports and physical activity providers, ensuring a learning culture is embedded in sports clubs and physical activity providers across Cheshire and Warrington.
• Ensure the role of sport welfare is aligned and connected into statutory agencies across Cheshire and Warrington (including Safeguarding Children’s Partnership, and Safeguarding Adults Board) and strategic organisations establishing a ‘Safe in Sport’ network.
• Provide regular high-quality communications to club welfare officers, promoting best practice and the latest learning, using a variety of mechanisms including establishing virtual, and face to face forums.
• Provide professional and regular one to one support to welfare officers through the provision of club visits.
• Attend events to raise awareness of welfare and safeguarding issues with parents, carers, and participants
• Lead the development and facilitation of opportunities for welfare officers from within and across sports (national, sub-regional and local) to network, connect and share information and learning around good practice.[JS1]
• Lead on the collection and analysis of data and insight to provide robust intelligence to assess impact of the role and inform on the planning for the future both internally and with partners.
• Support the preparation and completion of Sport England and other internal Management Reports.

Relationships

Strong, meaningful and collaborative relationships will be the key to the successful delivery of this role. Key internal relationships include those with the CEO and Leadership Team, the staff team, and the Board of Trustees.

Externally, you will build upon the development of the physical activity system partner relationships to grow the network around welfare and safeguarding in sport and physical activity and influence the approach locally.

Additionally, you will develop excellent relationships with SWO Network across the Active Partnerships in England, and with Sport England.

Impact

Providing national governing bodies of sport, and sports clubs within Cheshire and Warrington with appropriate support, advice, and guidance to ensure that good welfare practices and safer club environments are in place for all participants.

Person Specification

The skills and attributes outlined in this description are not exhaustive and we welcome candidates who can bring different relevant experiences to the role.

Skills & Knowledge

Skills

· Relationship building (at a local and sub-regional level).

· Excellent communication (both verbal and written).

· Welfare-related leadership (leading the specialist, welfare work area).

· Group leadership (leading a group for cultural change in welfare).

· Networking (supporting a network of welfare volunteers).

· Training (supporting volunteers to have the right welfare knowledge).

· Dispute resolution, negotiation and mediation (if appropriate, to support resolution of lower-level concerns).

· Prioritisation (prioritising NGBs and local clubs for welfare support).

· Digital technology (enabling the sharing of welfare resources).

· Ability to travel and work evenings and/or weekends (engaging with welfare volunteers).

Knowledge

· Professional welfare experience (children and young people and adults).

· Welfare issues, priorities and policies (outside sport).

· Sport issues, priorities and policies (inside sport).

· Welfare infrastructure inside and outside sport.

· Welfare procedures (including those followed in response to safeguarding concerns).

· Workforce (development and deployment).

· Awareness of the issues affecting the voluntary workforce and their development and deployment.

What can we offer to you

· Competitive salary in line with market expectations, regularly reviewed and benchmarked

· 25 days annual leave and a hybrid working policy

· 5% contribution to Company Pension Scheme, and an extensive HealthShield Employee Assistance Program (EAP) providing 24/7 immediate support

· 4x Life cover for death in service

· Personalised development programmes for all members of staff

· Active Allowance providing up to £100 to help you stay active (following a qualifying period)

How to Apply

Active Cheshire is a ‘Disability Confident’ and ‘Mindful Employer’ and as such we commit to offering an interview to disabled people who meet the minimum criteria for the job. Our recruitment processes comply with the Equalities Act 2010, and people who have or are experiencing mental ill health will not be discriminated against.

Should you wish to have a confidential conversation with us about this vacancy prior to applying, please contact Strategic Lead for Partnerships and Workforce James Self at james.self@activecheshire.org.

To apply for this role, please send a CV and covering letter detailing how your skills and experience make you an appropriate candidate for this role to recruitment@activecheshire.org and enter SWO-AC25 in the subject line. If you would like to submit your covering letter in a video format of you talking through your relevant experience, please do so. The video should accompany your CV, and be no longer than 5mins long, and in an MP4 format.