John Millington, Nigel Linton and Dimitri Adams completed a one-day certified course, in Fair Play Child Protection in Youth Cricket, certified by Cricket West Indies (CWI) and UNICEF. The training was held on Monday 10th July at the Raymond E Guishard Football Stadium Conference Room, Anguilla. The course was designed to help coaches better understand and recognize child abuse in its various forms and manifestations; appreciate that there are certain acceptable and unacceptable behaviours (the Dos and Don’ts) in coaching children; reinforce the importance of a child protection policy; highlight their responsibilities as coaches and clarify the steps to be taken if child abuse is observed, suspected or disclosed.
Trainees and Facilitator
The workshop was organized by Mr Terrance Adams, the Cricket Development Officer for Anguilla, under the CWI and Leeward Islands Cricket Board (LICB). Commissioner of Social Development, Mr Sanford Richardson, who is a certified facilitator for Cricket West Indies, conducted the workshop. According to him:
“My initial disappointment with the non-attendance of other persons who were given the opportunity to participate in the training quickly dissipated with the enthusiastic participation of the attendees. Based on their comparative scores on the pre and post test administered, it was obvious that the participants learnt much from the course content.”
Cricket West Indies has placed high priority on the training of coaches in light of the high profile incidents of abuse of children in sports reported internationally. This training was just one component coaches are expected to complete before they can be fully certified.
This course is the third such training Mr Richardson has facilitated having done two others in 2014: one in St Maarten and the other in Anguilla. On that occasion over twenty coaches were locally trained. Some of the participants from that training received their certificates prior to the commencement of the workshop.
-Contributed