Safeguarding in sport: The importance and role of expert risk assessment - Webinar, Tuesday 16 April

The question as to whether a participant might present a risk of harm to others in the sport can often be a difficult and nuanced one, understandably beyond the experience and understanding of many sports organisations. A very useful and important tool that can enable a sports organisation to establish the actual or potential harm presented by a participant is expert risk assessment. If a participant undergoes such a risk assessment, the resulting report and conclusion as to the participant’s degree of risk will inform a sports organisation’s next steps in seeking to manage such risk. For example, safeguarding proceedings might be appropriate under the sports organisation’s rules (with a view to preventing or restricting their participation in the sport), or it might be appropriate to seek to manage the risk in another manner, such as getting the participant to undertake training and/or for them to be monitored for a certain period. 

In this one hour online session, Marcella Leonard MBE (Director of Leonard Consultancy) will join Richard Bush (Partner and Head of Bird & Bird’s Safeguarding in Sport practice), and they will seek to aid understanding of the importance and role of risk assessment in safeguarding in sport, by discussing and explaining:

• what risk assessment is,
• why it is a useful tool for sports organisations, and
• what steps sports organisations must take in order to be able to require a participant to undergo a risk assessment in appropriate cases.

There should also be some time for Q&A at the end of the session.

If you'd like to attend this webinar, please register using the button below. Please note your details for this event will be shared with Leonard Consultancy for the purpose of this event and future related content. A calendar appointment will be available to download which will include your joining link.

Speakers

Marcella Leonard MBE, Leonard Consultancy

Marcella is Director of Leonard Consultancy and qualified as a social worker in 1989. Marcella has specialised in assessment and therapy in the fields of sexuality, sexual deviancy and trauma with both victims and perpetrators. Marcella co-ordinated the management of sex and violent offenders in Northern Ireland and has worked with several jurisdictions to establish their statutory management of sex and domestic / violent offenders. She delivers specialist safeguarding training to sports, criminal justice, religious, educational, social care, voluntary and statutory organisations which includes assessing and managing sexual and violent risk, consultancy, strategic and safeguarding policy development. She undertakes Sports and Statutory Case Management Reviews for organisations, training safeguarding officers and assisting organisations strategically and operationally to have robust safeguarding for children and adults at risk. Marcella’s practice, as a therapist with victims and survivors, is grounded in a trauma informed humanistic approach. Marcella has written several book chapters and co-authored articles in relevant professional journals and regularly provides expert opinion to media outlets as well as expert advisor to several documentaries for television productions. She is co-author of the AIM3 Adolescent Model of Assessment and the CASP-R Ability to Protect and Supervise – Risk assessment model. Marcella was awarded the MBE in the Kings Birthdays Honours in 2023 for services to social work in Northern Ireland and Internationally, she is the Chair of the Commonwealth Games Federation Safeguarding Panel, and she has been awarded NSPCC and Association of Child Protection Practitioners UK Child Protection Trainer of the Year 2019.

Richard Bush, Partner, Bird & Bird

Richard is a partner in the International Sports Group of Bird & Bird, where he established and leads the firm’s safeguarding in sport practice – the area of sports regulation about which he is, personally, most passionate. Richard first gained experience of safeguarding regulation in sport while employed as an in-house solicitor with the (English) Football Association, where he provided day to day legal advice to its safeguarding team for three years. Since joining Bird & Bird, he has applied and built on that experience, frequently advising many of the firm’s national and international sports clients on a wide variety of safeguarding matters – including (among others, and enlisting the support of other experts where appropriate) the development and review of safeguarding policies and procedures, the development and implementation of safeguarding regulations capable of addressing conduct from poor practice to serious cases of abuse, case management, and the conduct of safeguarding proceedings and appeals before safeguarding panels. Richard is a contributing author of the ‘Safeguarding’ chapters in both ‘Sport: Law and Practice’ (Bloomsbury Professional, 4th Edn, 2021) and ‘Football and the Law’ (Bloomsbury Professional, 2nd Edn, 2022), delivered the British Association for Sport and Law ‘Masterclass’ on ‘Safeguarding in Sport’ (2021), and he frequently writes and speaks on matters relating to safeguarding in sport. 

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