What are the legal issues for clubs seeking 'junior' members?

[009 micro modeller]

33 minutes ago, Gilbert said:

Can I say that I am little dismayed that a lot of us have tried to provide useful and accurate information at some length and at no point as the OP expressed any gratitude but merely asked more questions when the answers did not fit with his particular circumstances.

Has he? I think in some cases we’ve provided a bit too much information, but if @TEAMYAKIMA could more specifically pin down the exact sort of activity he wants to run then I could probably make some more straightforward suggestions (based on my experience of running activities which are similar in principle, even if not necessarily model-railway related).

 

Also, we’ve discussed safeguarding at some length but I also mentioned behaviour management as something to think about when deciding whether to run activities for unaccompanied children or those attending with their families. Other similar considerations might relate to insurance requirements (something that can also be important for unaccompanied juniors in amateur sports contexts) and risk assessment/health and safety (e.g. do you need more supervision if you’re doing something more risky like soldering, and do you need to impose a higher minimum age for activities involving plastic kits recommended for ‘14 years and over’ rather than card building kits?).

[Gilbert]

3 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

at no point as the OP expressed any gratitude..

other than a personal salutation to a "tc" this remains the case. I am disappointed.

[009 micro modeller]

35 minutes ago, Gilbert said:

other than a personal salutation to a "tc" this remains the case. I am disappointed.

In fairness though, it’s only two days since the thread was started. Also, just in case people get the wrong end of the stick I feel I have to point out that that quote about gratitude isn’t mine, it was me quoting your previous post.

[Cwmtwrch]

Slightly off topic perhaps, but part of safeguarding, quite unrelated to the actual activity involved, is being able to spot the child whose responses are unexpected and discussing them with the responsible adult [definitely not the child], and possibly referring the matter. There could be many reasons, but one possibility is existing abuse elsewhere. 

[009 micro modeller]

Just now, Cwmtwrch said:

Slightly off topic perhaps, but part of safeguarding, quite unrelated to the actual activity involved, is being able to spot the child whose responses are unexpected and discussing them with the responsible adult [definitely not the child], and possibly referring the matter. There could be many reasons, but one possibility is existing abuse elsewhere. 

Yes. Although I’d add to that that you have to be careful if the child discloses something about that responsible adult.

[TEAMYAKIMA]

3 hours ago, Gilbert said:

Can I say that I am little dismayed that a lot of us have tried to provide useful and accurate information at some length and at no point as the OP expressed any gratitude but merely asked more questions when the answers did not fit with his particular circumstances.

 

As the OP I sincerely apologise for not pro-actively thanking everyone who has contributed with input to my original posting. I have been out all day and my phone needs wi-fi for me to get internet access and one way and another that didn't happen and it's only now that I'm finally back home that I can pass on my thanks to everyone who has contributed.

 

I will pass on all the info I've been given to my club's committee in the hope that they can use that information to their (my) benefit.

 

Thanks one and all.

 

 

 

[009 micro modeller]

8 hours ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

 

As the OP I sincerely apologise for not pro-actively thanking everyone who has contributed with input to my original posting. I have been out all day and my phone needs wi-fi for me to get internet access and one way and another that didn't happen and it's only now that I'm finally back home that I can pass on my thanks to everyone who has contributed.

 

I will pass on all the info I've been given to my club's committee in the hope that they can use that information to their (my) benefit.

 

Thanks one and all.

 

 

 

Thanks. I still think we’d be able to give more helpful, less complicated advice if we knew a bit more about the kind of thing you want to do and how you see it working, but obviously appreciate you might want to go to the committee first to find that out.

[Gilbert]

11 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

In fairness though, it’s only two days since the thread was started. Also, just in case people get the wrong end of the stick I feel I have to point out that that quote about gratitude isn’t mine, it was me quoting your previous post.

My apologies for that - not my intention.

My post was as a result of a bit of frustration - I try to be as helpful as I can on here to people who pose questions or describe problems (and others are to me- I thank them).

I have posted many times and been thanked - and quite a few and not been thanked.

My initial response on Wednesday was very carefully thought out as this is a very sensitive area and I wanted to be as helpful as I could. I have to say I've been very impressed with the gravity, thought and knowledge obvious in the many posts since. I was just a bit surprised by the absence of thanks to me and others until I posed the question. That's all.

Chris

[TEAMYAKIMA]

4 minutes ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Thanks. I still think we’d be able to give more helpful, less complicated advice if we knew a bit more about the kind of thing you want to do and how you see it working, but obviously appreciate you might want to go to the committee first to find that out.

 

I spoke to our chairman yesterday and it appears that we do have a safeguarding policy in place. What we do need to do is to make sure that all members have read it and agreed to abide by it.

 

We will review that policy in the light of the advice given on RMweb.

 

Q. What do we want to achieve? A. More younger members

 

By that I am personally thinking as much about the parents as the children.  The average age of most of our members (I'm guessing here) must be over 65 and in some cases well over 65 and so IMHO we can't be looking to attract children who will eventually take the club forward, because by the time they are ready to take on the job of chairman or treasurer or secretary the majority of the existing club will be long gone. 

 

Our current club chairman has been a member of the club for approximately 57 years, most of the club 'doers' have been members for 40+ years - we can't survive unless we get some younger members who will take on club responsibilities - if you don't believe me, ask Warley MRC.

 

My idea is that if we are seen to be family friendly then we might (hopefully) attract younger adults who may well take a proactive role in the club in 2/3/4 years time.

 

That would be (my) plan A.

 

 

 

[Michael Hodgson]

10 minutes ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

Our current club chairman has been a member of the club for approximately 57 years, most of the club 'doers' have been members for 40+ years - we can't survive unless we get some younger members who will take on club responsibilities - if you don't believe me, ask Warley MRC.

 

 

 

 

In that case, the younger members you should be trying to recruit are people in their 40s or 50s.  DBS checks won't protect them against potential abuse by your more senile members!   😁

[kevinlms]

13 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

You've used this example before, and in the UK, the very limited number of people with access to to the names on that list know well enough that they can't run around telling random people who is on it. There are checks and procedures in place. In this case, what the DBS check might well do, is generate a court case where XXXXX sues the visitor for slander.

 

 

The whole point of my tale, was to highlight the fact that it isn't BS to have checks. I don't know the specifics of how the information came out (it wasn't my club), only that it was sufficient to change that clubs viewpoint.

 

Yes, my club did receive what was clearly a BS claim against a person, no evidence presented at all and they were told to take whatever information they had to the police, because there was nothing we could do. Someone wanted this person out of our club and thought we would kick them out - but without evidence we couldn't and didn't.

 

In case you are wondering, it IS illegal to pass on information in Australia, as to who might be on a list, the question is, how does a club deal with that information if offered? Surely it CANNOT be ignored - the answer is exactly as that club did and their members ended up doing what other clubs did and get checks done - they are free here for not for profit organisations, except those who run business type childcare operations.

 

Others have commented about the checks not being 100% foolproof, but that is a police and/or legal matter, not for clubs to determine.

 

To get back to the OP's question, I think it is unwise for any club to have junior members WITHOUT checks. No one has eyes at the back of their heads.

[Willie Whizz]

No system of checks, regulations and procedures can ever be 100% foolproof, especially against a skilled manipulator, but from an organisational point of view surely the point has to be to be able to demonstrate that all ‘reasonable’ steps have been taken. 

[Cwmtwrch]

1 hour ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

The average age of most of our members (I'm guessing here) must be over 65 and in some cases well over 65 and so IMHO we can't be looking to attract children who will eventually take the club forward, because by the time they are ready to take on the job of chairman or treasurer or secretary the majority of the existing club will be long gone. 

So you should be looking more at vulnerable adult safeguarding, perhaps? The elderly may have impaired memory or other mental  facilities which may make them vulnerable, albeit in different ways to children.

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Just had another thought 🤪 about safeguarding, which I don't think has been mentioned.

 

It's probably self-evident, but if the club takes photos/videos to share/publicise the club, make sure any children's faces are greyed-out, or explicit permission has been obtained from parent/carer, to use their image.

[Gilbert]

10 minutes ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Just had another thought 🤪 about safeguarding, which I don't think has been mentioned.

 

It's probably self-evident, but if the club takes photos/videos to share/publicise the club, make sure any children's faces are greyed-out, or explicit permission has been obtained from parent/carer, to use their image.

We ask this consent on the membership form for our sports club (and for entry forms for events FWIW). It can be a very sensitive issue - especially when a parent does not wish another current or former family member to know where the child is.....it happens...

 

[Peter Kazmierczak]

Indeed, Chris.

And it's also good to ask the child themselves if they want their picture taken.

[Gilbert]

18 minutes ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Indeed, Chris.

And it's also good to ask the child themselves if they want their picture taken.

and we rarely use surnames if names are used in anyway for the same reason...

[Peter Kazmierczak]

32 minutes ago, Gilbert said:

and we rarely use surnames if names are used in anyway for the same reason...

 

Fortunately, I have a common surname, so nobody will find me on Google...

[009 micro modeller]

25 minutes ago, Gilbert said:

We ask this consent on the membership form for our sports club (and for entry forms for events FWIW). It can be a very sensitive issue - especially when a parent does not wish another current or former family member to know where the child is.....it happens...

 

One way to do it that I’ve used in museums (when publicity photos etc. are being done) is to give the visitors who have consented to photo permission a coloured wristband or similar.

 

3 hours ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

 

I spoke to our chairman yesterday and it appears that we do have a safeguarding policy in place. What we do need to do is to make sure that all members have read it and agreed to abide by it.

 

We will review that policy in the light of the advice given on RMweb.

 

Q. What do we want to achieve? A. More younger members

 

By that I am personally thinking as much about the parents as the children.  The average age of most of our members (I'm guessing here) must be over 65 and in some cases well over 65 and so IMHO we can't be looking to attract children who will eventually take the club forward, because by the time they are ready to take on the job of chairman or treasurer or secretary the majority of the existing club will be long gone. 

 

Our current club chairman has been a member of the club for approximately 57 years, most of the club 'doers' have been members for 40+ years - we can't survive unless we get some younger members who will take on club responsibilities - if you don't believe me, ask Warley MRC.

 

My idea is that if we are seen to be family friendly then we might (hopefully) attract younger adults who may well take a proactive role in the club in 2/3/4 years time.

 

That would be (my) plan A.

 

 

 

Interesting. So what you actually want, really, is a more even age profile overall. So that should inform any suggestions that we now make on this thread because clearly it’s not that you want more children to become members (either unaccompanied or with uninterested accompanying adults), it’s about getting whole families involved. So as per one of my previous posts you need to run an activity or project that is interesting for both parents and children, i.e. one that is inclusive of children (so not something that is very difficult or only safe for adults to do) yet not boring for the parents either. While it’s not directly model railway-related, the sort of activities that I’ve done in the past (mainly for museums) that fit that description are generally craft-type activities that are fairly simple but also quite open-ended, to suit a range of skill, thoughtfulness and interest levels and attention spans.

 

I agree with @Michael Hodgson that the parental age range you want to attract, based on the desire to have younger members who will actually ‘take on club responsibilities’ is probably roughly around late 30s to early 50s. If you go younger than this then you get people who may have very young children (which takes up more time, so they won’t yet have as much time to give to a club), and if you go slightly younger again to mid-20s a lot of people are early career or sometimes still studying, don’t have children yet even if they will later, and also may be reluctant to commit to these things (for instance, in my case I actually do less at the moment for various hobby groups etc. than when I was a junior member, though I’d like to do more if I had the time and it fitted my work pattern). This may also inform the child age range you want to pitch the activities for, possibly more 10-18 than the very young ones.

 

I think based on what you’ve said you have to consider what the actual aim is. Perpetuating the existing club purely as an end in itself seems the wrong way to go about it, it needs to actually be about offering families who might join the opportunity to engage with a hobby that they’ll enjoy. I’m involved with an amateur sport group that is very good at getting whole families to take part, differentiating the activities as appropriate and promoting the family-friendly aspects of it. Railway modelling could be like this as well, I think sometimes we don’t emphasise enough how it can be a fun and collaborative hobby for the whole family.

 

The safeguarding policy should be reviewed regularly anyway, but it sounds like you’re already across that for now (and again, it’s a bit easier when parents are present). I think the main focus needs to be on training and checking committee members and those who actually will work with families, you could have a ‘code of conduct’ or simplified version of the safeguarding policy for ordinary members to read.

[Bernard Lamb]

1 hour ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

Just had another thought 🤪 about safeguarding, which I don't think has been mentioned.

 

It's probably self-evident, but if the club takes photos/videos to share/publicise the club, make sure any children's faces are greyed-out, or explicit permission has been obtained from parent/carer, to use their image.

Not just in respect of children. Permission should be obtained for the use of photographic images of any person taking part in an organized activity. The u3a now get leaders to ask at the start of any activity. As do a couple of local walking and cycling clubs. If any person does not want to be in a photograph then they need to make it known to the leader. I have come across public places where a film company is working and the current procedure is to put up notices warning that if people enter the area, they could be included in the background of the film.

Bernard 

[009 micro modeller]

8 hours ago, Cwmtwrch said:

So you should be looking more at vulnerable adult safeguarding, perhaps? The elderly may have impaired memory or other mental  facilities which may make them vulnerable, albeit in different ways to children.

Safeguarding vulnerable adults should always be part of the safeguarding policy anyway, included in addition to/alongside the information on safeguarding children. The definition of ‘vulnerable adult’ potentially encompasses quite a few different people the group leaders might come into contact with. I’m not too sure about the enhanced DBS check for working with vulnerable adults though (I’ve not actually had to have one, whereas I do have one for working with children) - my understanding is that the set of people eligible for one is rather more specific than it is for the enhanced check for working with children.

 

Another point - digital communication was touched on earlier and it was asserted that this should always take place through the parents. In most cases I’d agree but this doesn’t necessarily always have to be the case. For instance, I’ve read a museum safeguarding policy recently with a section on dealing with young volunteers and work experience students (which typically will be older secondary school age, KS4/KS5, 14-18). The policy though is that if direct communication takes place with the child themselves it needs to be via professional/organisational channels (so work emails rather than texting, personal emails or social media etc., and I’d assume on the other side the child would either use their school email, if they were placed in the work experience role through school, or there would be some level of parent/teacher oversight, so that it promotes a level of independence while still keeping them safe). But on the other hand a large, professionally-run organisation potentially has multiple layers of oversight over the actions of individual employees or volunteers, something that may not be possible in other contexts. Again though, to get back on topic I think by pitching the activities at whole families rather than children you might have largely avoided this issue.

[Colin_McLeod]

22 hours ago, 009 micro modeller said:

Yes. Although I’d add to that that you have to be careful if the child discloses something about that responsible adult.

 

How to deal with suspected wrongdoing should be a part of the procedure.  That was the case for the housing maintenance staff of our local authority  in relation to their work inside occupied houses.

[009 micro modeller]

1 hour ago, Colin_McLeod said:

 

How to deal with suspected wrongdoing should be a part of the procedure.

Well obviously, I agree. My more general point was that if children are attending with parents that doesn’t totally eliminate the safeguarding risk because they may make a disclosure about the parents they are attending with.

[PMP]

14 hours ago, TEAMYAKIMA said:

 

Q. What do we want to achieve?
 

A. More younger members

 

So that’s an entirely different question to your original legal requirements for junior membership. The safeguarding discussion has been very useful and informative, but I suspect you’re no closer to your answer as it appears you asked the wrong question, and your club has a safeguarding policy anyway.

 

It sounds like you really need to be asking yourselves :-

 

How do we attract new members, ideally younger than the current members?

 

That’s a whole different thread.

 

 

[009 micro modeller]

9 hours ago, PMP said:

So that’s an entirely different question to your original legal requirements for junior membership. The safeguarding discussion has been very useful and informative, but I suspect you’re no closer to your answer as it appears you asked the wrong question, and your club has a safeguarding policy anyway.

 

It sounds like you really need to be asking yourselves :-

 

How do we attract new members, ideally younger than the current members?

 

That’s a whole different thread.

 

 

Exactly. That’s why, having done the safeguarding questions (which obviously are important, and will most likely require the existing safeguarding policy to be reviewed) in some detail, I thought it might also be helpful to discuss the sort of activities that might be possible and of interest to that audience, and how you might run them.