Safe Hands Management System Rolls Out To All Primary-Affiliated Clubs in Wiltshire

Over the past 2 years, 38 clubs across Wiltshire have made use of the ECB Safe Hands Management System (SHMS). These clubs were onboarded as current Clubmark Clubs or clubs with 'Junior' Sections and/or 'Women's & Girls' sections.
As the SHMS goes into it's third year of operation, Wiltshire Cricket is delighted to welcome all primary affiliated clubs to the system for the 2023 season.

The SHMS is an ECB tool that is designed to help clubs manage volunteers, safeguarding qualifications and ensure that your club is well-governed. The SHMS also provides an opportunity for clubs to receive FREE liability insurance and easily track qualification expiry dates throughout the year.


SHMS Overview Video - https://www.ecb.co.uk/video/2914232

 

In 2023, all primary affiliated clubs in Wiltshire have been onboarded to the SHMS, and are therefore able to utilise the system in the build up to the 2023 season.
For many of the Wiltshire competitions this season, it will also be one of the requirements. To support new clubs with the process, the following communication has been sent on 20th January 2023, detailing the next steps for setting up the SHMS.

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What ‘exactly’ is the Safe Hands Management System?
The SHMS is an online database that collates safeguarding qualifications for your volunteers (DBS checks, Safeguarding Courses) and ensures that your club remains up to date with these essential certifications. The system ensures that club environments and volunteers across Wiltshire meet the required standards for cricket delivery in England. Additionally, the SHMS will hopefully save numerous volunteer hours each season, as information will be monitored automatically, rather than volunteers expecting to remember their renewal dates.
In addition to the above, it is expected that future versions of the system will also track 1st aid qualifications, coaching certificates and much more.
Your club will be required to adhere to the SHMS in 2023 and Wiltshire Cricket will fully support you throughout the entire process. The SHMS will be a requirement for some of the Wiltshire Cricket Competitions/Offers.

What are the benefits of the SHMS?

There are several benefits to the SHMS, with the key benefits including:
- Free liability insurance for your club (thus saving money) - https://www.howdengroup.com/uk-en/ecb-insurance-centre
- Volunteer Hours Saved, through tracking of DBS and safeguarding qualifications.
- Ensuring volunteers and club environments are safe
- Collates all required information in one place. (For clubs running All Stars & Dynamos Cricket or going through the Clubmark process, the SHMS is already linked).
- Up-to-date information and reminders for DBS checks
- SHMS is one of the criteria for Clubmark, so it’s a great starting point if your club is interested in this accreditation in 2023. (Further information below).

What actions are required?
The Safe Hands Management System officially launches for new clubs in Wiltshire, today! All primary-affiliated clubs have now been onboarded to the system and you should receive a set-up email within the next few days. Please do check inboxes and junk folders for this email, as the initial ‘set-up’ email is only sent to 1 person. You will be able to add additional ‘admins’ once the lead contact has invited them to the system.
(If you are not the key contact for your club, please communicate this to Wiltshire Cricket with an alternative contact).

Thank you to all the clubs who have been incredibly proactive over the festive break, by starting on the aforementioned actions, in the previous communication:
a) Identifying a lead contact.
b) Starting to verify DBS checks and attend safeguarding courses (Safeguarding Young Cricketers and/or SafeHands)

Moving forwards, the next steps are as follows:
1. Upon receiving the ‘set-up’ email for SHMS, please log into the system and explore the functionality.
2. Please complete any club profile information (I.e. Address, Teams, Grounds etc.) on “Club Information”, “Teams & Programmes” and “Venues” Tabs.
3. Begin to add volunteers to the system, ensuring you use their FULL NAME and email that is associated to the DBS Certificate. Please use the ”New Official” button for adding new volunteers. The “Add Role” button is for updating roles for an existing volunteer on the system.
4. Please ask each volunteer to accept their role. Once you add them to the system, they will receive an email which requires them to follow a link. You may notice that as you add volunteers and they accept their roles, the ‘criteria’ sections will become ‘ticked off’. A volunteer must accept their role and hold required qualifications to appear as ‘compliant’.
5. The system will automatically update with volunteer records (this can sometimes take up to 48 hours). At this point, please encourage your volunteers to complete any missing/required qualifications. In most cases, this is a simple ECB DBS check, but could also include safeguarding qualifications (SYC & SH) or coaching qualifications.

6. For clubs interested in FREE liability insurance, please complete the risk assessment sections and visit https://www.howdengroup.com/uk-en/ecb-insurance-centre for more information.

7. Throughout the process, I’ll be in touch with each club individually to provide additional support for the steps above and discuss whether there is any need for any further steps. The majority of clubs will complete the 6 steps above and become ‘compliant’. These clubs will only need to keep the system updated if there are any changes to volunteers. The great news is that, once you have added your volunteers, they will stay on the system for future seasons, meaning next year’s process is incredibly straightforward!

Deadline for achieving a ‘Compliant’ Status on SHMS is: Sunday 16th April


Where to find help/support for SHMS??

a) Wiltshire Cricket Board - At any point throughout the process above, please do feel free to contact Wiltshire Cricket – We would be more than happy to offer any support virtually, via email or over the phone.
Email: [email protected]; Phone: 07484 916777.

b) ECB SHMS FAQs - https://safehands.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360011921017-Safe-Hand
c) ECB SHMS Help Videos - https://safehands.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/360003565477-Club-Administrator-Video-Tutorials
d) ECB Helpdesk Email - [email protected]


e) Wiltshire Cricket – “Introduction to SHMS Evening” on TUESDAY 7th FEBRUARY at 7pm. This will be a short online webinar for clubs/volunteers who are new to SHMS in 2023, where I will run through the system in real time and answer any questions that you may have. Further information and meeting details will be sent out nearer the time.

Throughout the process, frequent updates will be provided for clubs too, so please do look out for these. These are likely to be every 3-4 weeks in the lead up to the summer season.


Clubmark 2023:
Finally, I’m delighted to also be able to offer the opportunity for your club to apply to become Clubmark accredited. This is a fantastic accolade for any cricket club that demonstrates high levels of governance, safeguarding, structure and equality/diversity. The Clubmark process is a relatively straightforward one that involves the following criteria, some of which you will likely already have in place:

- Club Development Plan, featuring short-term, medium-term and long-term ambitions.
- Appropriate governance documents (I.e. Constitution, codes of conduct, anti-discrimination policies etc.)
- Appropriate liability insurance (which can also be associated with SHMS, as mentioned above)
- Evidence of good financial management.
- Evidence of good governance standards (I.e. Committee Structure in place)
- ‘Compliant Status’ on SHMS (I.e. Volunteers hold ECB DBS checks and appropriate qualifications).

If your club would like some further information about Clubmark or feels that you are already on the road towards Clubmark status, by ticking a number of the criteria boxes already, please do feel free to get in touch. Wiltshire Cricket would be pleased to support you through the Clubmark accreditation process in 2023!

 

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As mentioned, Wiltshire Cricket will fully support every club with the SHMS system in 2023, so should you have any questions or if you would like any support with DBS/SYC qualifications, please feel free to ask.

 

Sam Dent (SHMS Contact) – [email protected]
Iestyn Lewis (County Safeguarding Officer) - [email protected]
Pete Sykes (Wiltshire Cricket Managing Director & Safeguarding Officer) - [email protected]