- Children under the age of 11 walking, jogging, or running at 5k events must be within arm’s reach of their parent, guardian, or responsible adult of the parents' choosing at all times
- Children aged 11 and over walking, jogging, or running at 5k events are free to participate without a responsible adult. Whilst we accept that they are still children and we must safeguard them appropriately, their welfare ultimately remains the responsibility of their parents
- Children aged 4 - 14 walking, jogging, or running at our junior 2k events are permitted to participate unaccompanied
- Children under the age of 11 who volunteer at any parkrun events must be accompanied by their parent, guardian, or responsible adult of their parents’ choosing at all times, and although they don’t need to stay within arm’s reach they must remain in close proximity
- Children aged 11 or over can volunteer at any parkrun events without their parent or carer but should be within close proximity of a responsible adult volunteer. This is providing the child, and the responsible adult are both comfortable
- Children can carry out the role of Run Director at any parkrun event, and be marked on the roster as such, but only if accompanied at all times by an adult Run Director, also marked on the roster as such, who would be required to take over in any serious situation
- Children cannot be Event Directors
At junior parkrun events, other than in exceptional circumstances, children under the age of 11 must be accompanied to and from the start/finish areas by an adult of the parent’s choosing; that adult must remain in attendance for the duration of the event and be there to collect the child from the finish funnel.
Unaccompanied under 11s at 5k events
At our 5k events we require children under the age of 11 to be accompanied at all times, this is to ensure their safety and prevent the volunteer team from needing to directly supervise very young children.
However, volunteer teams are not required to proactively search for unaccompanied under 11s, rather they should remain observant at all times and only intervene where appropriate, using the following principles:
- It should always be stated in the first-timers and pre-event briefings that under 11s should be accompanied at all times.
- If event teams think an under 11 might have been unaccompanied they should enquire in a positive and friendly manner, ideally by identifying their parent or guardian, and then sensitively explain the policy. In almost all cases this solves the issue.
- Where event teams believe that a family is repeatedly breaking this rule, they should politely explain that if they continue to run unaccompanied they may not be included in the results in future.
- If at this point their behaviour does not change, event teams should inform parkrun HQ via eventsupport@parkrun.com who will assist.
- Whenever an under 11 is identified has having walked, jogged, or run, without being accompanied, this should be logged as an incident by the Results Processor, Run Director, or Event Director.
It might come to your attention that there are unaccompanied children within the environment your event is, but who aren’t taking part in parkrun. As our events are held in public spaces, there can be a limit as to what we can do. There isn’t a specific law that prevents children from being in a public area without an adult, but generally, we take the view that parents / guardians should promote safe and responsible supervision based on each child’s needs.
If a situation arises where you are concerned for the safety of the unaccompanied child, we would encourage you to reach out to the relevant services as appropriate, i.e. medical if there is a medical need, etc.