You may have read on the main club website recently that the club has been awarded the Mini and Youth Seal of Approval by the Rugby Football Union and Clubmark accreditation by Sport England. It may be that many members of the club, both in Senior and in Junior rugby, are unaware of what this means for us. Below, I describe briefly what this accreditation is, and look back over the history of how we have achieved it, and finally I discuss the benefits of accreditation.
What is it ?
The Seal of Approval accreditation programme is a method of examining, maintaining and improving the provision of rugby in the mini and youth section of a rugby club. Building upon current good practice, the accreditation aims to recognise the effort and achievement of those clubs that reach, maintain and improve on the required standard of a club committed to the provision of quality rugby union experiences for young players.
The Community Rugby Department of the RFU has worked with Sport England to integrate the Mini and Youth Seal of Approval accreditation with the Sport England Clubmark scheme to ensure that the safe, effective, child-friendly club standards are met. Any club awarded the Community Rugby Mini and Youth Seal of Approval will also have achieved Clubmark accreditation.
Our History
Work on the Seal of Approval started at this club in 2001, when the Seal of Approval required only that clubs had certain policies in force relating to things like Child Protection, Health and Safety and Codes of Conduct, together with a sufficiently strong volunteer base to ensure these policies were enforced. As a Junior Section , we were already ahead of most of the requirements of the Seal of Approval at that time, but, over the years, the demands of the Seal of Approval have multiplied and it has become much more about governance, compliance and conformity. We always had the policies and always followed them; what we did not do was have an organised ‘Operations Manual’ where all of these documents could live, and where they could be accessed by Club members, and updated as necessary. Dave Morris started work on this part of the project three years ago when he was Junior Chairman, by putting loads of the documentation on our then nascent website – it’s still there, if you follow the right link from the club website. Much of the paperwork in our Seal of Approval folder is based on Dave’s hard work in that period. This latest, successful, application for Seal of Approval is the third that we’ve submitted in the past two years, due to huge changes in the format of the Seal of Approval and the need for additional training for all our volunteers. Today, we have more qualified coaches and referees, and more volunteers with CRB Disclosures than at any time in the past, and this has helped us get the Seal of Approval..
Why do we need it it ?
We need Seal of Approval in the first instance to demonstrate that we do run a safe, child-friendly operation at out Junior club. This, I think, is self-evident. We also need it to ensure that our profile is and remains raised, in the eyes of other clubs, our Constituent Body, the RFU, and by no means least, in the eyes of our own members.
Over the years we have held several finals’ days for Yorkshire RFU and have been extremely good at it, but the award of such prestigious events in recent seasons has more and more been only to clubs with Seal of Approval. Thus we need Seal of Approval to put our name back in the frame for county cup finals, County matches and such like.
Our contacts with local schools are one of the areas we are committed to improving in the next couple of years, and we may find it easier to break down initial barriers if we have Seal of Approval, given the emphasis now being placed by schools on Child Protection, Health and Safety and public liability. With Seal of Approval we can show that we have all of these bases covered.
A major plus of having Seal of Approval is access to what is termed ‘conditional funding’ from the RFU, and other types of funding from all kinds of bodies – Sport England, the Central Council for Physical Education, local authority community chests – the list is fairly large. Any future application for any such funding is likely to be looked upon more kindly if we have Seal of Approval.
Last, and very important for those involved, is the pride we gain from the recognition that the way we do things here is the way they should be done. As volunteers we become involved because our children come here to play. As parents we want to set the right example for our children. As members of this club, we want to be proud of our club, what it does, and how it does it.
We are.!
John Gray
Seal of Approval Co-ordinator
