Safeguarding in sport

A safe environment to sport

Table Tennis Vereniging (TTV) Amstelveen is a sporting, social and inclusive sports club. It is open to everyone regardless of your background such as age, gender, religion, country of origin, social origin, etc. The main goal of our association is to let everyone play table tennis with a lot of fun whereby we consider a safe sports environment of paramount importance.

In order to achieve this safe sports environment in the best possible way, TTV Amstelveen has:

appointed a confidential advisor
code of conduct for board members, trainers/coachs and sporters
recruitment policy for volunteers
VOG (*) for trainers/coaches

For more information about a safe sports environment in general: Centrum Veilige Sport Nederland (Dutch text) .

(*) VOG (abbreviation for “Verklaring Omtrent het Gedrag”) is a statement by the Ministry of Justice and Security’s screening authority showing that your (judicial) past does not constitute an obstacle to fulfilling a specific task or function in society.

Confidential Advisor

To discuss transgressive behaviour, TTV Amstelveen has appointed a confidential advisor.

See Board and Leadership for the name of the confidant and contact details.

In sport, transgressive behaviour means sexual harassment and abuse, intimidation and abuse of power, bullying and exclusion, aggression and violence and all forms of discrimination.

For more information on these forms of transgressive behaviour see:
Transgressive behaviour- Centrum Veilige Sport Nederland (Dutch text)

Within the association, the confidential advisor is someone who is committed to preventing transgressive behaviour and is accessible in case of questions/concerns and incidents.

The role of the confidant is:

Being accessible and visible within the association
Receiving signals to prevent social safety
Working together with the board member for social safety (chairman)
Doing initial reception and conducting confidential interviews
Discussing follow-up steps with the notifying person
Reporting to the board

For the record: the confidential advisor is not responsible for resolving an incident!

The board would like to advise all members and other stakeholders to first contact our confidential advisor not only in case of incidents of transgressive behaviour but also in case of signals/questions/prevention regarding this.

For further detailed information on the modus operandi/role of the confidential contact person, please see the link below:
Appointing a confidential contact person- Centrum Veilige Sport Nederland (Dutch text)

Codes of Conduct

Behaviour is a key determinant of culture in sport. In turn, a socially safe sports environment depends on that culture. In sport in general, rules of conduct, codes of conduct and disciplinary regulations have been jointly drawn up. Rules of conduct have been drawn up for each target group in sport: board member, referee, trainer/coach, athlete and elite athlete.

Codes of conduct for board members
As a director, you are trustworthy, careful and always act in the best interests of your club. What if you are going to renovate the clubhouse: how many tenders do you request? Who checks the treasurer? How do you make sure everyone enjoys coming to the club?
The board has taken note of and endorses the principles of the code of conduct for directors (Dutch text) .

Codes of conduct for trainers and coaches
As a trainer, you are an example to others. You don’t abuse your position and you respect athletes’ private lives. But how do you make sure sport remains fun? How do you make sure everyone stays motivated and gets better? And how far can you actually go in this?
The trainers have taken note of and subscribe to the code of conduct for trainers and coaches (Dutch text).

Codes of conduct for sporters
You do sport because you enjoy it. Therefore, make sure it stays fun. Not only for yourself, but also for the others in your team/training group and for your opponent. We treat each other with respect, everyone participates and is allowed to be themselves. Unwanted behaviour by fellow athletes is high on the list of transgressive behaviour. This must be improved. It is often in small things. For instance, be sporting in your reaction. Big mouths and complaining will not get you anywhere!
The board asks all members to take note of the code of conduct for sporters (Dutch text).

Further detailed information on codes of conduct in sport: Codes of conduct- Centrum Veilige Sport Nederland (Dutch text) .

Recruitment Policy for Volunteers

Without volunteers, no club!

Without our volunteers, we could not exist as an association and our members would not be able to enjoy matches, training sessions and/or visiting the canteen every week. The starting point is that anyone can become a volunteer of TTV Amstelveen. It is desirable for volunteers to be members of the association, but this is not a prerequisite.

TTV Amstelveen finds it important that its members can play sports in a safe climate. To ensure that we continue to work with volunteers with honest intentions now and in the future, there is a short procedure that must be followed before someone can become a volunteer.

Procedure

An introductory interview with a board member. During this meeting, the volunteer’s attention is drawn to the club’s website, on which, among other things, the articles of association, internal regulations, rules of conduct and information about the confidential advisor are published.
The volunteer is made familiar with the rules of conduct.
For a volunteer involved with youth members, a VOG statement is requested. This is renewed every 3-5 years. By mutual agreement, references may be requested from associations where the volunteer has previously been active.
If the volunteer is not a member of the association, the volunteer will be asked to sign a Declaration of Subjection to Disciplinary Law of the NTTB (the national table tennis association).
With this, the volunteer is subject to the disciplinary law of this association and is aware of it.