Role purpose
The Athlete Welfare & Safeguarding Lead is responsible for creating and maintaining a safe, disciplined and supportive environment for athletes across REIVER programmes.
The role owns safeguarding processes, welfare escalation, athlete support, conduct concerns, parent/guardian communication where relevant, and welfare risk management at training camps, competitions, European events and wider Team GB-related activity.
You will help protect athletes, coaches and the organisation by making sure welfare standards are clear, concerns are acted on properly, and safeguarding is embedded into the way REIVER operates.
Key responsibilities
Safeguarding and welfare
- Act as REIVER’s lead point of contact for athlete welfare and safeguarding.
- Manage safeguarding concerns, welfare issues and conduct escalations.
- Ensure appropriate reporting, recording and escalation of concerns.
- Maintain clear safeguarding policies, procedures and guidance.
- Support athletes who raise concerns or require welfare support.
- Work with coaches and leaders to identify welfare risks early.
- Make sure safeguarding responsibilities are understood across the programme.
Athlete support
- Provide a trusted route for athletes to raise concerns.
- Support athletes dealing with pressure, conflict, poor conduct, personal issues or welfare concerns.
- Help younger athletes and developing athletes understand expectations, boundaries and support routes.
- Work with parents/guardians where appropriate.
- Support athletes during camps, competitions and international travel.
- Help maintain a performance environment that is demanding but safe.
Standards, conduct and culture
- Reinforce clear standards of behaviour for athletes, coaches and support staff.
- Support the management of conduct concerns, complaints and boundary issues.
- Challenge poor behaviour, unsafe practice or inappropriate conduct.
- Help create a culture where people can raise concerns early and confidently.
- Ensure welfare support does not become an excuse for poor standards, but that standards are applied fairly and safely.
Training and awareness
- Deliver or coordinate safeguarding briefings for coaches, staff and athletes.
- Ensure staff understand their responsibilities around welfare, boundaries and escalation.
- Support onboarding for new coaches, athletes and delegation staff.
- Keep safeguarding training and records up to date.
- Promote practical awareness of athlete welfare, mental wellbeing, supervision and safe conduct.
Events and travel
- Support welfare planning for training camps, competitions and European events.
- Work with the Head of Delegation to manage supervision, conduct and welfare risks while travelling.
- Ensure appropriate welfare arrangements are in place for young athletes or vulnerable participants.
- Support incident response during events.
- Produce post-event welfare notes, lessons learned and recommendations where required.
Governance and reporting
- Maintain accurate and confidential records.
- Report safeguarding and welfare matters to the appropriate internal and external bodies where required.
- Support risk assessments and welfare reviews.
- Provide regular updates to senior leadership on safeguarding themes, risks and improvements.
- Keep policies aligned with relevant sport, youth, safeguarding and operational standards.
About you
You are calm, clear and trusted.
You know how to handle sensitive issues without drama, panic or avoidance. You are comfortable dealing with difficult conversations, challenging poor behaviour and making decisions when something does not feel right.
You understand performance environments. You know that high standards and strong welfare are not opposites. Athletes need support, but they also need structure, accountability and clear boundaries.
You do not need to be a skydiving expert, but you must be able to operate in a high-risk, high-performance environment where safety, trust and judgement matter.
You will be someone athletes can approach, coaches respect, and leadership can rely on.
Essential experience
- Experience in safeguarding, welfare, athlete support, youth protection, pastoral care, education, sport, social care, HR, policing, military, healthcare or a related field.
- Strong understanding of safeguarding principles and welfare escalation.
- Experience handling sensitive, confidential or complex people issues.
- Ability to manage concerns calmly, professionally and appropriately.
- Strong judgement around boundaries, behaviour, risk and escalation.
- Experience working with young people, athletes, students, teams or vulnerable groups.
- Strong written record keeping and reporting discipline.
- Confident communicating with athletes, parents/guardians, coaches, leaders and external bodies.
- Ability to challenge poor practice or inappropriate behaviour.
- Willingness to travel to camps, events and competitions where required.
Desirable experience
- Safeguarding qualification or designated safeguarding lead experience.
- Experience in sport, elite performance, adventure sport, aviation, military, education or youth development.
- Experience working with national teams, academies, clubs or representative squads.
- Mental health first aid training.
- First aid qualification.
- Experience supporting athletes during travel, camps or competitions.
- Knowledge of British Skydiving, Team GB pathways, FAI/ISC competition environments or similar sport structures.
- Experience developing safeguarding policies, codes of conduct or welfare frameworks.
- Experience managing parent/guardian communication.
- Training delivery experience.
Salary range: £38,000 - £50,000
Location: Hybrid (two days per week on site) / Remote (working at events)