No.45 September 2005 |
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Hosted by Coventry City Council at Warwick University, UK, July 8th 2005
Child welfare and rights in sport have not been prominent themes over the years but have been brought to our attention recently through human rights advances elsewhere and through some serious scandals affecting youth sports in several countries.
Unique in the 37 year history of the International Children’s Games, the 2005 ICG, hosted by the City of Coventry, England, ran the first ever International Symposium on Children’s Rights, Welfare and Life Chances in Sport. This doubled as the Inaugural Annual Conference of the Sport England/NSPCC Child Protection in Sport Unit, a unique resource that advises English sport organisations on how to optimise child safety and protection in sport. Despite around thirty pre-registered delegates being unable to get to the venue because of the tragic London bombings the previous day, 194 people attended the event.
The objectives of the Symposium were:
Keynotes speeches covered: The Status of Children’s Rights and Welfare in Sport (Celia Brackenridge, researcher), Strategic Plan for Safeguarding Children in Sport (Steve Boocock, Director of the CPSU) and Parenting in Sport (Ian Tofler, American Sport Psychiatrist). In addition, the Panathlon International Declaration on Ethics in Youth Sport was signed on behalf of the ICG by President Torsten Rasch and on behalf of the CPSU by Steve Boocock, presided over by Panathlon Vice President Vic de Donder from Belgium.
A programme of ten workshops was run to help the Symposium to meet its objectives by offering a wide range of choices to delegates including best practice from several sport bodies, international examples of child safety schemes in sport and several training-orientated sessions on event safety and child welfare. A CD Rom has been prepared containing all the speeches and materials from the Symposium keynotes and workshops. This will be used by delegates to cascade their learning from the event to colleagues in clubs and sports associations throughout England and beyond: in a few months time the CD contents will be made available free to the public through the website of the CPSU (www.thecpsu.org.uk ).
Twelve young people from Coventry’s Democracy Project and four from local Stratford College assisted with the event. They were given pre-event training and were all presented with certificates and gift bags at the end of the Symposium. Videotape collected by the young people will be submitted as part of the ICG legacy.
In addition to an exhibition by a range of sport and child welfare agencies, children’s art on the theme of ‘My passion for sport’, by pupils from Bluecoats School in Coventry, was displayed. The pieces were later shown at Coventry’s Herbert Gallery for the pleasure of the children, their families and the local public.
Evaluations of the ICG Symposium were excellent, with all aspects achieving top scores. It is to be hoped that the ICG will now incorporate such an event in future International Children’s Games and thus help spread learning and good practice on children’s rights, welfare and life chance throughout the world.
Celia BrackenridgeSymposium Director August 2005
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