Sports and Recreation Associations

Child Safety in Sport and Recreation

Sport plays an important role in the lives of children and young people, building confidence, teamwork and resilience. It also involves one-on-one coaching, physical instruction, change rooms, overnight camps, travel and online communication with coaches, all of which create safeguarding risks that sporting organisations must manage.

Many sporting and recreation organisations are required to comply with Child Safe Standards in their state or territory. In Victoria, the Commission for Children and Young People reported that community sporting clubs accounted for 67% of the organisations it started action against for potential non-compliance with the Child Safe Standards in 2023-24. In Queensland, the Child Safe Organisations Act 2024 requires most sport and recreation organisations to meet the Child Safe Standards from 1 April 2026 – read our compliance roadmap for Queensland sporting organisations.

At a national level, Sport Integrity Australia oversees the National Integrity Framework, which includes a child safeguarding policy embedding the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations and provides an independent pathway for safeguarding complaints in sports that have adopted it.

Sporting organisations must also ensure coaches, officials and volunteers hold the required Working with Children Checks, and understand their obligations under Reportable Conduct Schemes where these apply. Holding Working with Children Checks or a standalone child safety policy is not enough: regulators expect organisations to show how child safety is actively implemented and monitored.