Safety & Screening

Nick has not completed a Police Vulnerable Sector Check. That's the screening that matters for anyone coaching kids, and until it's done we're not going to describe him as screened, cleared, or background-checked — because he isn't, for this.

A Vulnerable Sector Check is the only one of Ontario's three police checks that surfaces record suspensions for sexually-based offences and certain non-conviction information. It's the standard for working with children, and it's the one we're pursuing.

There's a practical obstacle worth being open about: in Ontario a Vulnerable Sector Check is normally requested by the organisation offering someone a position, not by the person themselves. Chatham Kings is a one-person business, so there's no separate employer to make the request. We're working through that with Chatham-Kent Police Service rather than around it.

What we do in the meantime

• Sessions run in open, visible spaces. Never a closed room, never a locked door.
• Parents are welcome to stay for any session, start to finish. You never need a reason and you never need to ask. If a coach is ever reluctant to be watched, that is the thing to worry about — here or anywhere else.
• No private messaging with a player under 18. Anything written goes to the parent, or to the parent and player together.
• Nick does not drive a player anywhere alone.
• Any incident — an injury, a concern, anything out of the ordinary — is written down the same day and the parent is told that day.

Private sessions are one coach and one player. In a bigger organisation the standard practice — the Coaching Association of Canada calls it the Rule of Two — is to have a second adult present. It's a voluntary standard rather than a legal requirement, and as a one-person business Nick can't meet the two-adult half of it. Pretending otherwise would be easy and dishonest, so here's what we do instead.

If any of that ever isn't true of a session you've booked, tell us and we'll refund it. That's not a formality — a coach who won't work in the open is telling you something.

Rowan's Law (Concussion Safety), 2018 applies to us. Being a small for-profit business doesn't exempt us and neither does not being registered with Ontario Basketball — the Act covers anyone training athletes in a listed sport with a participant under 26, and basketball is a listed sport. We apply it across every program rather than arguing about which ones technically qualify.

Before a first session

Ontario publishes the concussion awareness resources, and the law requires the approved ones rather than anything we'd write ourselves. Every player, and a parent of every player under 18, confirms they've read them before taking part, and again each year.

• Rowan's Law concussion awareness resources
• Rowan's Law free online learning module

Our concussion code of conduct

Everyone involved — players, parents of players under 18, and coaches — commits to these. They're the commitments the regulation sets out, in plain English.

1. 1.Fair play, and respect for everyone in the gym.
2. 2.Speak up about concussions — including your own. If you think you might have one, say so. If you think a teammate might, tell a coach.
3. 3.Support the return-to-sport process, even when it's slower than anyone wants.
4. 4.Share what matters. If a player is removed from play, that information goes to their school and to any other program they play for.
5. 5.Coaches make room for it — before and after every session, there's an opening to raise a concussion concern.
6. 6.Zero tolerance for dangerous play of the kind that causes head injuries.
7. 7.Dangerous play of that kind means being removed from the competition. That's not a warning system.
8. 8.Repeatedly breaking this code carries escalating consequences.

We review this code at least once a year, as the regulation requires.

If we suspect a concussion

• The player comes off immediately. Not after this drill, not at the end — immediately. That applies even if the knock happened somewhere else entirely, at school or at another club.
• If it looks like it needs an ambulance, we call 9-1-1. We'd rather explain an unnecessary call than the other thing.
• The parent or guardian is told that day.
• We write the removal down and keep the record.
• We tell you plainly that a doctor or nurse practitioner has to assess your child before they play again, and we hand you both of these protocols so you know exactly what comes next.

Getting back on the court

• Nobody returns without a medical assessment by a physician or nurse practitioner. There is no version of this where we take a parent's word, or a player's, or our own judgement.
• Assessed and not diagnosed with a concussion, with medical clearance to return? Back to normal.
• Diagnosed with a concussion? Graduated steps — light activity, then sport-specific work, then contact — each one completed before the next begins.
• No return to unrestricted play until a physician or nurse practitioner has given clearance and you've passed that on to us.
• Share the medical advice you were given with us as your child moves through the steps, so we're not guessing.
• If your child is diagnosed, tell their school and any other program they play for. We'll remind you — it matters more than it sounds.
• We keep a written record of the whole progression up to clearance.

The regulation requires a named designated person who makes the call to remove a player. For Chatham Kings that's Nick Gonzalez. He's the only coach, which makes the line of responsibility short and completely unambiguous.

We take photos at sessions and camps and sometimes put them on Instagram. That is entirely optional and it is a separate question from signing your child up.

• Registering never requires photo permission. Say no and nothing about your child's place, treatment or coaching changes in any way.
• We don't publish a child's full name alongside their photo.
• Change your mind whenever you like — email us and we take it down. You don't have to explain.
• We don't sell photos, hand them to anyone else, or use them for anything but showing what the program looks like.

Most things get sorted by telling Nick. But there's an obvious problem with a one-person organisation: if the concern is about him, he's also the complaints department. So here are the routes that don't run through us.

We'd rather hear a complaint early and awkwardly than find out later that a family quietly left.