We are pleased to announce that WAKO GB have attained the Governing Organisation Safeguarding Code for Martial Arts.
The safeguarding code is funded by the National Lottery and was launched by the Sports Minister in early 2018. Its purpose is to recognise clubs or providers in England who have demonstrated that they have reached and maintained good safeguarding standards.
Safeguarding our members is at the heart of everything we do and so we have spent much of the pandemic defining and producing the policies and procedures needed to get the mark. This means WAKO GB is now well placed to help all of our England based clubs attain the mark independently.
As a governing body one of our many roles is to regulate the sporting environment so as to ensure safe practises are followed by our members. As a part of that responsibility WAKO GB have defined an approval process for new clubs seeking insurance for their coaches and members. This process includes checking things like DBS records, coaching, first aid and safeguarding qualifications. The document describing this process can be found on the Wako GB website safeguarding page. Note that these same checks will be made whenever clubs look to renew their insurance so as to ensure they stay current with their qualifications.
For England based clubs, we will require them to attain their safeguarding code “mark”. This is not as daunting as it sounds and a number of WAKO clubs have already been through the process and attained the code. The policies and procedures needed to attain the mark have already been created for clubs to use and can be found on our safeguarding page: https://wakogb.com/2491-2/.
There is also a step by step guide with instructions for applying for the “Safeguarding Code in Martial Arts” which may help you acheive the “mark”.
