After many brave athletes have come forward to speak out against abusive behaviour across various sports, we’ve welcomed the recent response to ‘the Whyte Review’ from UK Sport & Sport England and we thank both organisations for their leadership and clarity.

We have always prioritised safeguarding and continue to realise the importance of our collective roles to create safe places for people to participate in fun, high quality, appropriately regulated and psychologically safe sport and physical activity.

We realise that there is a lot of trust put into the people and organisations who provide and deliver sport and physical activity by the participants, the carers and parents and that we must create the conditions for people to raise concerns with confidence that they will be listened to and appropriately acted upon.

The release of the 19-point response has given us the prompt to reflect on what we currently do, on what we could do and what we should do.

We will

1. continue to work locally with clubs, groups and organisations to support them with their safeguarding.
2. We will look internally at our own processes and ensure we continually improve and stay updated.
3. Maximise the expertise of the Child Protection in Sport Unit, Ann Craft Trust and the network of Active Partnerships across the West Midlands