👷‍♀️ Qualifications, safety, safeguarding and insurance

You will need to have certain things in place in order to deliver live streamed classes.

The CIMSPA website states the following:

Working with leading sector partners CIMSPA have developed this policy to define and enable good practice – supporting independent practitioners across the UK to keep delivering and keep the nation active.

We highly recommend you make use of this policy before delivering any activities online. The policy includes information on qualifications, insurance, disclaimers, recording sessions, participant and practitioner safety, safeguarding, legislation, music licensing and policy compliance.

👩‍🎓 Qualifications

We recommend you check CIMSPA's Delivering Sport and Physical Activity Online Policy found here on their website for information about being qualified to deliver activities.

✍️ Insurance cover

You will need to have adequate insurance cover to deliver live streamed classes.

It is recommended that you check with your insurer if you are covered or not. If you are not, you can check out the insurance packages from EMD UK, which will cover you when delivering virtual classes.

EMD UK, the national governing body for group exercise, has provided this advice and fact sheet for instructors which answers a lot of specific questions to do with insurance, health and safety, and other regulatory aspects during the delivery of live streamed virtual classes.

You will also need to take all the same health and safety aspects into consideration, just as you would when running a regular class, including:

🦺 Space risk assessment

Provide common sense guidelines to participants about the space (size and type, ceiling height, floor, etc.) they should use to exercise, the clothes they should wear and general hazards to watch out for. Be sure to also carry out a risk assessment on your own exercise space as normal.

Whilst bodyweight exercises are perfect in the absence of equipment, we understand that sometimes it is necessary, e.g. a chair for chair based exercises. If you will be asking participants to use equipment (see 👟 Put yourself in their exercise shoes), be very clear that they must ensure it is in good condition and safe to use.

👧 Safeguarding procedures for virtual classes

At this time, you may need to apply some of your existing guidance and procedures to the classes hosted in your new space. However, the principles of online safeguarding will still apply. For more information, we recommend you thoroughly examine this guidance provided by the NSPCC's Child Protection in Sport Unit.

Please also refer to CIMSPA's documentation here for further guidance on safeguarding.

The NSPCC and O2 have published a Net Aware guide to using Zoom safely, which includes pointers like:

• Supervising young people and children at all times when they are using Zoom;

• Reminding children not to let anybody into a chat that they don’t know;

• Familiarising yourself with and utilising Zoom's security features (by clicking the Security Icon - read Zoom's guidance here for more information) to restrict participants’ ability to share their screens, chat in a meeting, rename themselves or add annotations to what the host is sharing, and to remove participants entirely; and

• Reminding children not to share Zoom links with anybody other than their friends. They shouldn’t share them on social media, in game chats or on group chats.

From 9th May 2020, all meetings on Zoom are now automatically password protected and have ‘waiting rooms’ enabled.

📋 Participant disclaimer

Due to the nature of virtual class delivery, participants need to understand that they are taking part at their own risk and are responsible for their own safety and welfare. The instructor still has a duty of care, which can be met by observing these guidelines.

It is always good to have a disclaimer like this in writing, so you can add it to your class description and/or confirmation emails, as well as saying it at the beginning of the class.

🩺 Participant health screening

Use the same process as for regular classes as far as possible. If participants pre-register you can contact them prior to the class. On the day prompt/remind them to stop if they start to feel at all dizzy or unwell.

🏥 First aid/emergency procedures (instructor and participants)

Make sure everyone knows what to do if they feel unwell, are injured or have any kind of accident during the class.