• Take a player-centred (and child-centred) approach to coaching, planning sessions around the needs and abilities of the children who will be attending and adapting accordingly

• Be a friendly professional

• Treat all children equally, with respect and dignity

• Be an excellent role model – this includes not smoking or drinking alcohol when coaching and being mindful of behaviour around the club at all times

• Put the welfare of children first, before winning or achieving goals, by encouraging a constructive environment where healthy competition, skill development, fun and achievement are promoted in equal measures

• Work in an open environment (for example, avoiding being alone with a child, and encouraging open communication with no secrets)

• Build balanced relationships based on trust which enable children to take part in the decision-making process. This will include routinely asking children if they have enjoyed activities in the training session and adapting activities to meet their expressed wishes, abilities, needs etc.

• Have excellent ‘boundaries’, so children know how to behave and what is expected of them

• Work in line with Home Office guidelines, which state, if you are in a position of trust and authority, you must not have sexual relationships with 16-17 year olds in your care

• Refuse to tolerate acts of aggression

• Recognise the needs and abilities of children, avoiding too much training or competition and not pushing them against their will

• Give positive and constructive feedback rather than negative criticism

• Encourage children to assess their performance based on their own mastery of skills, knowledge and love of the game, rather than on whether they won or lost.

• Help children acknowledge the value that good opposition offers their own development as cricketers

• Work to ECB guidance on physical contact, where children are always consulted and their agreement gained before any contact is made

• Keep up-to-date with technical skills, qualifications and insurance in sport

• Ensure if mixed sex teams are taken away, they are always accompanied by a male and female member of staff

• Ensure while on tour, you do not enter a child’s room or invite them into your room – except in an emergency, i.e. when very unwell

• Find out if any children you are coaching have medical conditions that could be aggravated during playing or training

• Keep a written record any time a child is injured in your care, along with details of any treatment provided

• Promote good sportsmanship by encouraging children to be considerate of other athletes, officials and club volunteers and by being modest in victory and gracious in defeat

• Help the ECB to work toward eradicating harassment and abuse of children from cricket

• Be appropriately and professionally dressed when operating in a cricket environment with children

• Conduct coaching sessions with at least one other adult present

• Use physical contact only if its aim is to:
• Develop sports skills or techniques
• Treat an injury
• Prevent an injury or accident from occurring
• Meet the requirements of the sport

• Unless the situation is an emergency, explain the reason for any physical contact to the child in advance i.e. reinforcing the teaching or coaching skill

• Stop immediately if the child seems uncomfortable in any way with the physical contact

• If a child becomes injured during a coaching session and the injury requires the child to be carried to a place of treatment, seek support from another adult before moving the child

• Administer any first aid in the presence of another adult or in open view of others

• Tell any child with visual impairment who you are and ask their permission before you come into physical contact with them

• Agree with the children, teachers or other appropriate adults that to praise good performance a
‘High Five’ or similar action will be used

• Use a parent’s mobile telephone number if they need to communicate with a child for the purposes of coaching or passing on cricket information

All Coaches working with children at this Cricket Club WILL NEVER :

• Attempt to adjust the grip of a child when in the normal batting stance position

• Put themselves in a situation where they are the only adult present around children, for example in changing rooms, showers, or on a minibus

• Help children dress, for example, to put on pads, helmets, or clothing unless they request this and genuinely require assistance

• Help children to put on an abdominal protector

• Take on one to one coaching with a child unless another adult or parent is present

• Spend excessive amounts of time alone with children away from others

• Take or drop off a child at an event, take a child to their home or transport them by car, where they will be alone with the coach

• Engage in rough, physical or sexually provocative games

• Share a room with a child

• Allow or engage in any form of inappropriate touching or physical abuse

• Take part in, or tolerate, behaviour that frightens, embarrasses or demoralises a cricketer or affects their self esteem

• Allow children to use inappropriate language unchallenged

• Make sexually suggestive comments to a child, even in fun

• Make a child cry as a form of control

• Allow allegations made by a child to go unchallenged, unrecorded or ignored

• Do things of a personal nature for children or vulnerable adults that they can do for themselves

• Shower with a child

• Have inappropriate contact with children – for example, by text or social media