The FA · free preview
FA Welfare Officers Course
The club’s named safeguarding lead: the role, a safeguarding culture, safer recruitment and the DBS check, managing concerns, and working with the County FA.
£25 · about 2 hours · tutor-led virtual workshop · needs an in-date Safeguarding Children certificate
Free lesson · The welfare officer’s role and responsibilities
The Welfare Officers Course: what you are signing up for
The FA Welfare Officers Course is the training for the two named safeguarding leads grassroots football cannot run without: the Club Welfare Officer (CWO) and the League Welfare Officer (LWO). Every England Football Accredited club with youth teams must have a named, trained CWO; every youth league must have an LWO. The course is for people who have been appointed to one of those roles, or who are about to be. It is not a coaching award and it is not a repeat of the Safeguarding Children Course: it assumes you already know how to recognise abuse and respond to a disclosure, and teaches you to run the club’s process.
| The real course | |
|---|---|
| Entry | An in-date Safeguarding Children certificate (two-year validity); intended or appointed welfare officers |
| Duration | About 2 hours |
| Delivery | Tutor-led virtual workshop — a live online classroom with a tutor, not self-paced e-learning |
| Cost | £25 |
| Assessment | Workshop completion; recorded against your FA Number (FAN) |
| Validity | Kept current alongside the two-year Safeguarding Children cycle |
The workshop covers six things, and this course follows them: the welfare officer’s role and responsibilities; building a safeguarding culture; safer recruitment — interviewing, references and FA DBS checks; managing concerns, and the line between low-level worries and referrals; working with County FA Designated Safeguarding Officers and The FA’s case-management system; and the safeguarding networks you signpost people to.
Professional academies are different in scale: they appoint Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs), with higher-level DSL training, inside structures that are audited externally. The grassroots CWO and the academy DSL do the same job with different stakes, and this course looks at both.
Your club’s youth section has grown to nine teams and is applying for accreditation. The secretary asks who the welfare officer is. The answer cannot be “the chairman, sort of”. It must be a named adult who holds Safeguarding Children, has completed this workshop and holds an in-date FA DBS check — and whose name and contact details every coach and every parent can find.
Source: Specialist & support roles reference · FA Welfare Officers Course (WOC)
The syllabus: 4 modules, 20 lessons
- 1
The welfare officer’s role and responsibilities
- The Welfare Officers Course: what you are signing up for free preview
- The named lead: what you own, and what you never do
- Club, league and academy: three versions of one job
- The welfare officer’s month: the checklist
- The framework you administer
- 2
Building a safeguarding culture and safer recruitment
- What a safeguarding culture is, and how you build one
- Codes of conduct: the behavioural contract
- Safer recruitment: the eight steps
- The DBS check: regulated activity, the barred list and the three-year cycle
- Induction and training currency: who needs what
- 3
Managing concerns: low-level worries, referrals and the County FA
- Receiving a concern: the officer’s first hour
- Low-level concern or referral? The threshold
- The County FA and The FA’s case management: what happens after you refer
- Records and confidentiality
- Supporting the people in a case
- 4
Safeguarding networks and signposting support
- The safeguarding network: who sits where
- Signposting: pointing people to help you cannot give
- Adults at risk: the other half of safeguarding
- The professional club: the designated safeguarding lead
- Staying current: the two-year cycle, Play Safe and your own development