The Prevention of Corporal Punishment and Abuse in Physical Education and School and Community Sport in the UK.

National and international legislation including the Children Act 2004, the Education Act 2002 and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) have been in place for some years in England and the other home countries to protect children from all forms of abuse in education and community settings, including in curricular and extra-curricular physical education (PE) and in community sports clubs. Sport-specific policies from the Child Protection in Sport Unit, such as the Standards for Safeguarding and Protecting Children in Sport, also outlaw abuse in sport in England. Research has identified five conditions crucial to the effective implementation of a large-scale evidence-based abuse prevention programmes, whether at a national, sub-national (regional) or local level (Mikton & Butchart, 2009). This presentation will briefly discuss three of these conditions – referred to as a culture’s child maltreatment prevention ‘readiness’ – including the legislative and policy framework; the importance of prevalence and evaluation research; and the political and public will for preventing child abuse in sport and PE.