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In the context of a sports or arts academy, lots of students are children or teens, so they need a responsible older person who can be reached in an emergency. It could be the student's parent, aunt, uncle, cousin, neighbor, or another person responsible for that student, family or not.

In Spanish, that word is "acudiente": someone to reach out to ("acudir"). What would be the correct word in English? I can't find a correct translation.

I'm trying to find a single word. If there's not a single one, I could go with emergency contact.

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    I'm not a native speaker, so wait for others to reply. I think, this can be as simple as "emergency contact".
    – tum_
    Nov 3, 2016 at 6:35
  • @A.Toumantsev You should expand on that and make it an answer. School forms in the US typically use simply "Emergency Contact" or "Parent or Legal Guardian > Contact Information."
    – pyobum
    Nov 3, 2016 at 7:29
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    @A.Toumantsev Nothing much different in UK "Emergency contact", or "Person to be contacted in emergency".
    – WS2
    Nov 3, 2016 at 9:06
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    Increasing numbers of places are using ICE (including the parkrun organisation): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Case_of_Emergency
    – JonLarby
    Nov 3, 2016 at 9:18

1 Answer 1

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A quick Google search for "acudiente en ingles" shows that the question is fairly popular. Most of the answers suggest something like "parent or legal guardian". However, this suggestion is not perfect as the person does not necessarily have to be a 'legal guardian' or even a relative, this can well be a family friend or somesuch. In the context of filling in a form (in an academy, school, etc.) the term that seems to be used most often is simply "Emergency Contact".

See also the comments from other participants for alternative variants.

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  • Emergency Contact is good.
    – Mick
    Nov 3, 2016 at 13:38
  • On mobile phones, ICE is commonly used. Nov 3, 2016 at 18:47
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    Of course, on mbl phns, brvty s a vrtu. Nov 7, 2016 at 1:14
  • :) I, for one, never heard of ICE until now...
    – tum_
    Nov 7, 2016 at 7:08

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