Dear Partners,

As a National Sport Governing body, it is Judo Canada’s mandate to ensure the highest quality and safe environment of judo programs delivered to our customers of whom over 75 % are children and youth.  Such a goal cannot be accomplished without cooperation from all Provincial/Territorial Judo associations in Canada.

With the introduction by the Coaching Association of Canada of the “ RESPONSIBLE COACHING MOVEMENT” initiative (for details see: http://coach.ca/responsible-coaching-movement-s17179), a mandatory “Background Check” has been identified as one of the principal requirements to determine the eligibility of a person to instruct and coach in sport.  Further to that development, Judo Canada introduced the “Background Check” requirement for all coaches who are 18 years old and older and who are involved in the NCCP.  However, this mechanism is addressing only a small fraction of people involved in instructing and coaching judo in close to 400 clubs operating today in Canada and all those clubs are under jurisdictions of Provincial and Territorial Associations.  It is pertinent to the well being of judo in Canada that we are perceived as a “best practice” model. Judo Canada’s recommendation is that all active instructors and coaches are required to take the “Background Check”.

To enable implementation of this initiative Judo Canada took the following steps:

• arranged an easy access to a background check on-line application: https://www.sterlingtalentsolutions.ca/landing-pages/j/judo-canada/;
• agreed with the Sterling Backcheck on an $25 fee – payable online by the applicant;
• set up a Judo Canada account with the Backcheck to which all notifications of a completed checks are communicated;
• designated a Judo Canada staff who will access and review the shared information;
• nominated a “Screening Committee” whose mandate is to review cases where the Background check does not appear “clear” – green colour;
• ensured that all coaches working with the National team as well as other Judo Canada staff interacting with athletes are clear;
• set 3 years limit on validity of a check;
• and lobby the Coaching Association of Canada to make the Background Check status visible in the LOCKER database (at this time only members of the Professional Coaches have this information displayed in the LOCKER). Once such option is reached, coaches will be required to share their check information with the Coaching Association of Canada only.

Considering the fact that some Provincial/Territorial Associations already have the Background Check requirement in place,  we would like to encourage that the “clear” status of coaches is shared with Judo Canada.  In the future, once the three years validity limit expires we encourage all associations to use the Judo Canada’s online system. If for whatever reason (i.e.  Province offers the check for free) such option is not chosen,  any coaches going through the process via different channels will be required to share the outcome of the check also with Judo Canada.

The Sterling Backcheck system offers an automatic option to all applicants – allow sharing of the outcome with more than one organization, so in any case i.e. Judo QC requires this information as does Judo Canada, then the outcome is automatically forwarded to both (or more) organizations selected by the applicant.

Final NOTICE:  Once the CAC database offers this service the procedures will be dramatically simplified. We hope to share this news with you soon.