The Territorial Federations training course on Child and Adolescent Protection in Football culminates next week

The people appointed by the Territorial Federations as Child Protection Delegates will complete their training next week, having finished the advanced course designed for their preparation with residential training days. More than thirty people will attend the lectures given by professionals in the field and a round table event scheduled for one of the days, with both practical and theoretical sessions in what will be the end of the Advanced Course for Child Protection Delegates, organised by the Training and Integrity and Child Protection departments of the RFEF.

Bronze level certification will be awarded at the end of a training course, based on the standards of the FIFA Guardians programme. This transfers concern for such matters to the RFEF to apply their methodology, established in its corresponding protection protocol, to all the Territorial Football Federations. The protection delegates in these federations will play a pedagogical role across the clubs in their regions.

In this way, the aspiration is to create a network of reference people for minors in football, guaranteeing their protection and safety. "The training structure is pyramidal, so that the protection of minors covers all stages and levels of football and spans the whole of the country's territory," explains Felipe Sánchez-Pedreño, director of the RFEF's Integrity and Child Protection Department. A pyramid whose summit is occupied by the RFEF, with its Delegate for Child Protection, Patricia González.

Course aligned with FIFA's principles and methodology

The Advanced Course for Child Protection Delegates (awarded by the RFEF), with a course duration of 85 hours, qualifies participants to obtain the RFEF Diploma in Child and Adolescent Protection in Football. The course is fully aligned with the relevant subject framework provided by FIFA, and uses guidelines from the aforementioned FIFA Guardians programme, as well as others of its own. In this way, a diverse teaching programme is achieved, with a methodology that combines the theoretical and the practical, and which ends with the elaboration of the Child Protection Protocol for each territorial federation.

On 6 and 7 February, the residential workshop will take place, which is the final phase of the course; the sessions are a good opportunity to share experiences and good practices, in addition to being focused on the drawing up of the aforementioned territorial protection protocols.

Among the speakers at the sessions are Sánchez-Pedreño himself, Aitor Hernández, executive director of Fútbol Más España; Rafael Pareja, from the Fundación Fútbol Más; and José A. Culebras, tutor for youth categories at the RFEF.

There will also be a round table event, counting on the presence of the psychologist of Spanish national teams, Javier López Vallejo; the U-23 coach, Laura del Río; and the head of Development of women's football at the RFEF, Ana Álvarez.