Dragon Mark
Welcome to Dragon Mark, the sports quality accreditation scheme for netball clubs in Wales.
Dragon Mark
Dragon Mark is a programme designed to support you and your netball club to provide the best possible experience for your members and operate in line with best practice.
It’s a sports quality accreditation scheme for netball clubs in Wales. It is built around a set of core criteria which ensure that accredited clubs operate to a set of consistent, accepted and adopted minimum operating standards.
Welsh Netball relies on volunteers and clubs to help us in all areas, and they make a huge contribution to the game of netball. We want to empower you to help increase the numbers of netballers in your local community, ensure you are providing a safe environment for your members and make sure important aspects of your club’s management are applied.
The criteria for Dragon Mark can be broken down in to 3 key areas or ‘pillars’ of your club. These are:
Underpinning each of these pillars is a specific set of criteria to ensure your club is operating safely and effectively. Once all of the set criteria has been met, the club will be awarded the Dragon Mark by Welsh Netball. This ‘seal of approval’ from the Governing Body lasts for a duration for 2 years before it needs to be renewed.
The first pillar of Dragon Mark is all about Safeguarding. Safeguarding refers to the process of protecting children (and adults) to provide safe and effective care. This includes all procedures designed to prevent harm to a child.
To complete the Safeguarding element of Dragon Mark, clubs must:
- Appoint a suitable person as Club Safeguarding Officer. The Club Safeguarding Officer plays an important role in the welfare of the members of a club. They help to develop a safe and inclusive environment for all people at the club, give advice and listen to concerns about safeguarding and well-being issues and are a link in the reporting process which helps protect the welfare of the netball community.
- All Lead Coaches must complete the ‘Safeguarding & Protecting Children’ workshop.
- The Club Safeguarding Officer must complete a 3-hour ‘Time to Listen’ course.
- The Club Safeguarding Officer and all Lead Coaches must undergo a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. DBS is a government service that helps prevent unsuitable people from working with children and vulnerable adults. By processing requests for criminal records checks, it helps organisations like sports clubs make safer volunteer recruitment decisions.
The second pillar of Dragon Mark is Club Management. Club Management is all about having the right roles in place to run your club, having the correct policies to operate legally and safely and being affiliated to Welsh Netball.
To complete the Club Management element of Dragon Mark, clubs must:
- Be affiliated to Welsh Netball, which will provide your club with Public Liability Insurance.
- Ensure that all of its members are affiliated to Welsh Netball, which comes with a host of benefits including Personal Accident Cover.
- Ensure that an Executive Committee is in place to run the club on behalf of its members. An Executive Committee must consist of a Chairperson, a Secretary and a Treasurer.
- Ensure that it has all essential policies in place. These policies are: a Constitution, a Safeguarding Policy, an Equality Policy, a Code of Conduct and a Data Protection (GDPR) Policy.
The third pillar of Dragon Mark is Workforce. Workforce is about ensuring that the people in your club who are delivering netball are suitably qualified.
To complete the Workforce element of Dragon Mark, clubs must:
- Ensure that all of its Lead Coaches are UKCC Level 2 qualified.
There are a number of reasons your netball club should be looking to achieve the Dragon Mark standard…
- Dragon Mark can help your club attract new players and volunteers, as well as help you to retain your existing members.
- Dragon Mark provides club members and the general public with assurances that the club is operating effectively and is providing a safe environment for everyone.
- Upon achieving Dragon Mark, clubs receive a £75 Workforce Development voucher for your club to spend on any Welsh Netball course of your choice (terms and conditions apply).
- Dragon Mark assists you in developing your own club development plan to ensure your club is fulfilling its potential.
- Dragon Mark clubs receive a netball, signed by a current Welsh international player.
- Accredited clubs receive a personalised Dragon Mark accreditation certificate.
- Provided accredited Dragon Mark status on Welsh Netball’s Club Finder tool.
- Dragon Mark clubs get preferential and priority access to Welsh Netball products and services.
Every netball club in Wales completes a ‘Club Affiliation’ form at the start of every season. The information provided by your ‘Club Secretary’ as part of this process forms the basis of the information used to map your club against the Dragon Mark criteria. It is important to make sure the information you provide as part of the club affiliation process is complete and up to date.
If you would like to actively develop areas of your club to achieve the Dragon Mark you can contact the Netball Development Officer (NDO) for your area who will assist you through the process from start to finish.
There are a number of online resources that can help you work towards achieve the Dragon Mark standard for your netball club.
Click below to download Dragon Mark guidance documents:
You can visit these websites for advice, information and guidance on Safeguarding, Club Management and Workforce:
Listed below are the current clubs which have achieved Dragon Mark:
We will be updating this section soon.