Everyone has a shared responsibility for safeguarding and creating safe, enjoyable environments in Orienteering whether as an Orienteer, parent, coach, official or spectator. 

Within the West Midlands Orienteering Association we want you to feel safe and welcome and we encourage you to raise any concerns you have or incidents you witness at the earliest opportunity to our Association Welfare officer or British Orienteering’s Lead Safeguarding Officer.

Our association is committed to the principles of Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults and our Association Welfare Officer is always there if you need any support or would like any advice.

Further information is available on British Orienteering’s Safeguarding pages.

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Reporting a concern or incident

All reports are taken seriously and dealt with in a sensitive manner. Should you wish to report a concern or incident please contact either:

• Our Association Welfare Officer
  • Mel Elkington safeguarding@wmoa.org.uk

• British Orienteering’s Lead Safeguarding Officer
  • Call 07981 091622 or email safeguarding@britishorienteering.org.uk

This includes any concerns about the welfare or safeguarding of either children and/or adults, both within orienteering and outside of orienteering.

All reports will be logged in confidence with the Lead Safeguarding Officer who will also explain the processes which will be followed depending on each case.

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WMOA’s Welfare Officer

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Reporting Forms

In addition to contacting the Association Welfare Officer or Lead Safeguarding Officer, you can report a concern or incident online.

British Orienteering Quick Report Form

British Orienteering has introduced an incident reporting form which can be used to make immediate reports to the Lead Safeguarding Officer. On completion of this form the Lead Safeguarding Officer will follow up with you directly.

There is also a link to the word version of the reporting form on the British Orienteering website Safeguarding Concern Reporting Form – word version – please email your concerns to either your Club Welfare Officer or the Lead Safeguarding Officer as soon as possible.

If you need any advice on how to complete a form or what should you do if someone reports something to you, this short video will help you.

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Safeguarding Policies

As a region, we support and follow British Orienteering’s two safeguarding policies, these can be found via the links below:

• Child Safeguarding Policy
• Safeguarding Adults at Risk Policy

For further information including resources and training opportunities visit the British Orienteering website or contact the Lead Safeguarding Officer.

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When you bring your children orienteering we will help you to ensure their welfare and safety by ensuring that:

The people who run the sport are safe to be with.
• Our coaches and officials who have unsupervised regular contact with children and adults at risk have satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service checks.
• Our clubs have welfare officers.

We take all reasonable steps to ensure that your children will be safe from other participants and strangers.
• Organisers of events and activities carry out risk assessments and have procedures for managing safety in public places.
• We have had no reported incidents of children coming to any harm from strangers in public places whilst orienteering.

The challenges set will be manageable so that your children are able to find their way around the course.
• Planners of courses and activities follow rules and guidelines to provide courses or activities with different levels of challenge to meet different needs.
• We keep track of every individual at every event or activity to ensure that they are accounted for. We will give you information so that you understand the level of challenge on courses offered.
• We expect you to follow our guidelines about which course is appropriate for you or your children to complete. In order to meet our safeguarding and insurance responsibilities, we may refuse to let you do a course if we consider you are taking undue risk.

They are not likely to be injured but if they are there are people and procedures in place to look after them.
• Officials organising events and activities carry out risk assessments.
• They have procedures for finding and looking after lost children and for providing first aid.

Your children’s individual needs will be considered as far as possible within the nature of the sport.
• At events, we will explain what physical and navigational skills are needed to complete a course and how we can help with an individual need.
• At activities led by coaches if you tell us about any special needs we will tell you what adaptations can be made to make our activities accessible.