eSafety Commissioner providing free training and resources for sport orgs
Vicsport members have the opportunity to take part in the eSafety Commissioner’s free online training course after they presented at the Child Safety and Member Protection Information Officer (MPIO) Forum in July.
Australia’s national regulator and educator for online safety, the eSafety Commissioner was represented by Senior Education Trainer Greg Gebhart at the Forum. Greg discussed how to create a culture of online safety within an organisation and provided a checklist for organisations and clubs to review their online safety policies and practices.
Key messages included having a designated senior member included in all communications with participants to protect both parties and ensuring participants know when and how to report an incident if they feel threatened, harassed, intimidated or humiliated online.
Greg also examined the ideas of keeping professional and personal social media accounts separate, ensuring participants know they have the right to be consulted about their image being posted online, advising participants and parents/carers about where online communications will occur and if photos or videos are used for coaches’ feedback, inform them where the content will be stored and when it will be deleted.
“With the amount of participants being heavily engaged in social media while running their sport, there is a real need for education and support to be provided in terms of the right way to use social media,” said Anthony Bowd, Vicsport Manager Strategic Projects.
“The eSafety Commissioner is a free service that offers great resources and advice that can be utilised by SSAs who can then pass that information along to their clubs and participants.”
As a follow-up to their presentation at the Forum, the eSafety Commissioner is now offering a free one-hour ‘eSafety training for sport organisations’ session aimed at administrators, coaches and managers.
The training will cover:
- The role and function of eSafety
- Online risks and proactive conversations
- Safeguarding children online and learning from the Royal Commission
- Risk scenarios to strengthen policies and processes related to online risks and harms
- Appropriate and inappropriate use of social media in a sporting context and
- eSafety resources to assist coaches and clubs
“Obviously, instances like online bullying and eSafety in a school setting are well known but it’s a relatively new topic within sporting environments,” said Anthony. “That means, as an industry, we need to get on the front foot and understand how to establish correct behaviours and best practices in using social media.”
“The positive feedback we got from attendees of our Forum shows how helpful the eSafety Commissioner’s session could be. This training is well suited to sports looking to pass down the information to clubs as well as clubs themselves who can use these resources that have been developed with industry support and tailored for the sporting environment.”
Delivered live via an interactive webinar, the training requires a minimum of 30 participants to book. Contact the eSafety Commissioner via their website.
