Involving children and young people in decision-making is a fundamental step towards enabling the full enjoyment of children’s rights, as well as democratising sport and creating a safe sport environment.

EPAS held a child consultation session in the framework of the “Start to Talk” project on 30 May 2023 in Sofia. The session was organised by the Child Council of the Bulgarian State Agency for Child Protection. The event brought together young people (between 15 and 17 years of age) to gather their ideas on how to implement more efficient child safeguarding policies in sport in Bulgaria.

Dr Melanie Lang, Director of Edge Hill University’s Centre for Child Protection and Safeguarding in Sport (CPSS), has produced a report on the consultation. Click here to read it.

The “Start to Talk” project has been supporting the Bulgarian Ministry of Youth and Sports in the development of a roadmap for the implementation of child safeguarding policies in sport, including concrete steps to set up Child Safeguarding Officer (CSO) roles.