By Suanne Waugh, PCA National Integrity Manager
This fictional scenario, written by our Integrity Manager Suanne Waugh, will feel familiar to many Pony Club families and committee members. It highlights how easily assumptions can be made, and why simple checks like Working with Children Checks play such an important role in keeping our clubs safe.
I still remember the moment my stomach dropped.
It was a warm Sunday afternoon, and I was standing by the arena fence watching my daughter laugh with her group. The sun was low, dust hanging in the air, horses snorting softly. It felt safe. Familiar. Like every other Pony Club afternoon.
A parent of one of the girls in the group turned to me and said,
“Do you know if the club checks that coaches have a Working with Children Check (WWCC)?”
I didn’t. It had never crossed my mind to ask. I assumed it was done. That someone, somewhere, had verified it.
We trust systems. We trust clubs. We trust that adults in positions of authority over children have been vetted to ensure they are suitable to work with them.
The parent went on to say that someone from the local hockey club had raised concerns about the same coach, saying she wouldn’t let that man coach her daughter. This was the new coach who had arrived at the club a couple of months ago and was now out there with our group.
As a result, she said she didn’t feel comfortable leaving her daughter during rally sessions anymore, but she didn’t want to make trouble at the club either. The coach seemed like a nice guy, and sometimes people just make trouble for others.
The conversation made me uncomfortable, so I decided to check whether the club was actually verifying WWCCs.
I found the President and asked the question.
“Oh, we sort of do,” she said, “but we don’t really like making it too hard for volunteers to volunteer.”
She went on to say,
“Sometimes coaches forget and then eventually we might get them, or I guess sometimes it is all too much ‘red tape’ for some people. It’s better to have a coach than not have one though. WWCC don’t really mean anything anyway.”
I didn’t feel comfortable with that answer, so I did some investigating of my own.
I discovered that the local hockey club had removed this coach because his WWCC had been revoked. He had a criminal history which, in the eyes of the department, made him unsuitable to work with children.
I also discovered that the hockey club had asked for his WWCC and formally recorded him against their club. Because of that, they were notified the moment he was no longer able to work with children. A simple compliance measure had helped them provide a safer environment for their children and young people.
I felt physically ill. Not just angry, but ashamed.
Ashamed that I hadn’t asked more questions. That I had waved goodbye to my daughter so many times to pop away during a rally session to do other tasks without thinking twice. That my child was being coached by someone who was not suitable to have been placed in that position.
I kept thinking about the Pony Club safeguarding policies, about the committee’s duty of care, about how the WWCC was such a simple compliance measure and existed for a very important reason.
The WWCC was not just “red tape”, it was our club’s first line of defence for safeguarding our children and young people.
How had this been allowed to happen at our Pony Club?
The words of our President were ringing in my head:
“Oh, we sort of do but we don’t really like making it too hard for volunteers to volunteer.”
I had to ask myself, what is too hard or too much work when it comes to ensuring the safety of children and young people?
I rang the President to share what I had learnt.
She was shocked and mortified to discover that she and her committee had allowed this to happen. She thanked me for letting her know and conceded that it wasn’t too hard to ask for a WWCC, just uncomfortable sometimes to get everyone to comply.
The next day, the committee communicated to all coaches and officials that they would need to produce a WWCC and undertake the required integrity courses under the 8 Actions to Safeguard Your Club.
The coach in question wrote to the committee saying that, unfortunately, his work commitments had changed and he could no longer be available to coach at the club.
The first line of defence had worked.
The club made a commitment to ensure all coaches, officials and committee members had a valid WWCC, completed the required integrity courses, and that everything was properly recorded on the JustGo database.
The hardest part about the whole situation was telling my daughter that her coach had left.
She didn’t understand.
“Oh no, that’s not fair, he was so nice,” she said.
And that’s what frightened me most.
Unsafe people don’t always look unsafe.
Has your club ensured its aligned with the 8 Actions to Safeguard Your Club?
