Throughout the world, more organisations are using sports as an effective development tool to meet targets related to education, social inclusion, child protection, and empowerment. However, it must be accompanied by high-quality and holistic safeguarding training and practices at all levels. 

The UEFA Foundation for Children and Common Goal took the lead in the sport-for-good sector by launching an online safeguarding course. A seven-module training programme was developed in collaboration with experts to educate, support, and raise the awareness of coaches, volunteers, and everyone working in the sport-for-good sector. This expertise emanates from members of the Common Goal Community, located in different parts of the world who worked together to share the diverse perspectives derived from their backgrounds and experiences.  

Every organization in the Sports for Good sector must put safeguarding at the heart of their work. Safeguarding failures are caused by deeply rooted structural imbalances that need to be addressed. The learning methodology is based on raising awareness since the mechanisms of harm in sports are related to existing power relations and the perception of violence.  

The open and free e-course exists in Arabic, English, French, and Spanish, and displays accessibility features for people with special needs. It is developed throughout seven modules with five steps in each.  

The seven modules are: 

• Understanding and mitigating risks  
• Physical abuse 
• Emotional abuse 
• Sexual abuse 
• Neglect 
• Online abuse 
• How to build inclusive spaces 

Modules can be taken in whatever order and at any time, asynchronously. According to the time a learner would like to spend, each module takes between 20 to 40 minutes. Once successfully finished, all the modules can download a certificate of completion.

The Safer Play e-course, also avails child-friendly content that can be shared by the organisations with their participants in the form of posters and social media feeds about different types of abuse, how to get help in the organization, and the commitment to the protection that the organization takes towards the children who join activities. 

Besides these, the learners are invited to explore approaches from the field and listen to first-hand experiences from practitioners about establishing safe areas where children can play sports.