What requires a CRB check?

[David Blower]

The government guideline is if you "work with children." That of course could mean almost anything!

I assume if your sitting next to a child and you say to them: "don't forget, the knights CAN jump over the other pieces," that a CRB check is not required. If every adult who said that (or a similar comment) to a child required a CRB check it would probably mean that every chess player in the country would need one!

But clearly if your running a junior only chess club you would need one (I would assume anyway.)

The answer is probably somewhere in the middle, but what does your own club do? I'm especially interested in clubs with a mainly adult membership that play in local open age leagues, but have children as part of their membership as well.

[John Upham]

This may prove useful.

Perhaps you could ask your club secretary to let you have sight of their child protection policy?

Note that CRB checks are replaced by DBS checks.

I suspect the ECF main site is in the process of being updated in this regard since there is no mention of DBS replacing CRB.

[Mike Gunn]

John is right. Although the current government seemed to indicate it felt that there were too many unnecessary CRB checks going on, insurance companies seem to think otherwise. If your organisation (chess congress/ county/ club) has a insurance policy to cover its chess activities then you need to read the small print and conform with its requirements (e.g. possession of a child protection policy). My own county has discovered that its insurer expects county captains to be CRB checked if there are juniors in the team and for the captains to carry a first aid kit.

[Michael Flatt]

Further advice on Child Protection and Supervision of Regulated Activities involving children can be found on the website of the Department of Education:

http://www.education.gov.uk/schools/pup ... re-barring

[David Blower]

Thanks for the replies.

Do NOT play physical contact games with young people

Don't worry, we don't throw chess pieces at each other!

I suppose the main thing is that children are never alone with an adult, whilst either coaching them or going to away matches. Going to away matches if we choose the child, we'll also choose the child's dad to be in the team, so the child would never be alone with an adult that is not related to them.