Safeguarding & Child Protection Policy
1. Purpose and scope
This policy protects children and adults at risk who train at Rebel Combat Sports. It covers all combat sports training the club runs (gi and no-gi grappling).
A child is anyone under 18. At this club that means our 16–17-year-old members and any 13–15-year-old admitted case-by-case under section 11. Members aged 16 and 17 train alongside adults, but they are children in law, and this policy applies to them in full.
The policy binds both directors — Ben Zarif and Adrian Bradbury — every coach, and anyone else who helps at a session, whether paid or not. That includes any future staff, contractors, and volunteers.
Rebel Combat Sports is affiliated to the British Martial Arts & Boxing Association (BMABA). We follow the BMABA national safeguarding policy and guidance, and keep the safeguarding training recommended for our roles current. We will comply fully with any BMABA safeguarding enquiry, investigation or audit.
2. Roles
Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL): Adrian Bradbury. Contact: adrian@rebelcombatsports.com (or hello@rebelcombatsports.com, the shared inbox). The club does not yet have a dedicated safeguarding phone line; until it does, email is the reliable route.
Deputy contact: Ben Zarif (head coach) — ben@rebelcombatsports.com. If the DSL is unavailable, go to Ben.
If a concern involves the DSL himself, do not raise it with him. Go directly to one of these instead:
- Ben Zarif — ben@rebelcombatsports.com
- BMABA safeguarding team — safeguarding@bmaba.org.uk, or the secure form at bmaba.org.uk/safeguarding. As our affiliation body, BMABA takes concerns about a club DSL directly, from anyone.
- NSPCC helpline — 0808 800 5000 (Mon–Fri 10am–4pm) · help@nspcc.org.uk. Anyone can call, including parents and members.
- East Sussex LADO (allegations against adults who work with children) — lado@eastsussex.gov.uk, or the online referral form at eastsussex.gov.uk. The LADO publishes no direct phone number; referral is by email or the online form. The LADO takes referrals from employers and professionals, not the general public — parents and members should use the NSPCC helpline, which can refer on.
If a child is in immediate danger, call 999.
3. Safe recruitment
Every coach must hold an enhanced DBS check with a children's barred-list check before any unsupervised contact with under-18s. No exceptions, including the directors.
Checks are renewed every 3 years, or kept current through the DBS Update Service. BMABA can arrange checks for affiliated instructors.
Anyone who regularly helps at sessions gets the same check, and so does any future staff member or volunteer in the same position, paid or not. Occasional helpers are never left unsupervised with under-18s.
The DBS check is not the whole of recruitment. Before anyone new coaches or helps regularly, we also require:
- A written self-declaration covering convictions, cautions, allegations, safeguarding sanctions, and any previous suspension or bar by another club or body. Failing to disclose is itself treated as a safeguarding concern.
- Two written references, preferably from settings where they worked with children. We follow up by phone where a reference is vague.
- A written role description setting out what the role involves and its safeguarding responsibilities.
- A supervised start. Nobody new works unsupervised with under-18s until a director has seen them coach and is satisfied.
Ongoing duty to disclose. Anyone this policy binds must tell a director without delay if they are arrested, charged, cautioned or convicted of any offence, made subject to a civil order (such as a non-molestation or sexual risk order), referred to the DBS or a LADO, or suspended or barred by another organisation. Failure to disclose is treated as misconduct. The directors owe this duty to each other and to BMABA.
Check dates and renewal dates are recorded in the compliance register.
4. Safe practice for grappling
Physical contact. Grappling is a full-contact sport. Contact between coach and member is instructional, proportionate, and only what the technique requires. Coaches say what they are about to do before demonstrating on anyone. Any member, of any age, may decline to drill with any partner without giving a reason.
Under-18s.
- No 1:1 sessions out of sight of others. Either a second adult is present, or the session runs in an open-mat layout where the whole floor is visible.
- Minors pair only with partners the coach has approved as appropriate for their size and experience.
Communications. Coaches do not send direct messages to under-18s. All messages to a minor go via a parent or guardian. Group announcements go in open channels that parents can see.
Changing. Minors use the changing facilities at a separate time from adults. The coach waits outside the door and keeps others out until the minor has finished and left the room.
Listening. Coaches ask under-18s directly and regularly how training is going — not only their parents. Anything a child raises, about the club or anything else, is taken as seriously as if an adult had raised it. A child's view is recorded and given weight in any decision about them, and decisions are explained to them.
5. Photography and filming
Photography and filming at sessions happen only with signed consent — see the membership form and the parental consent pack.
No photography of under-18s without the parental photo consent in that pack. Phones stay away during sessions, except for designated media use agreed with the coach. Any member may ask for any image of them to be deleted or untagged, and we take it down where practical — copies others have already shared or screenshotted can't be recalled.
6. Recognising abuse
Coaches and helpers should know what they are looking for:
- Physical abuse — hitting, shaking, or otherwise deliberately hurting a child. In sport it can also mean pushing a child's body past what is safe.
- Emotional abuse — persistent belittling, humiliation, or making a child feel worthless. Shouting a child down in front of the group counts.
- Sexual abuse — any sexual activity with a child, and non-contact acts such as showing sexual images or grooming online.
- Neglect — failure to meet a child's basic needs: turning up unfed, unwashed, injured and untreated, or repeatedly uncollected.
- Bullying — repeated deliberate harm by other children or adults, on the mat or online.
In a coaching relationship, grooming can look ordinary at first: special attention, gifts, favouritism, lifts home, or steering a young person away from the group and their parents. Isolation is the warning sign.
Harm does not have to happen at the club to matter here. A gym is often where a child first signals trouble from somewhere else — home, school, online, a peer group. Coaches should also be alert to signs of criminal or sexual exploitation (unexplained money or gifts, new controlling "friends", going missing, growing secrecy), radicalisation, self-harm or a mental-health crisis, and — for the DSL's awareness — female genital mutilation and forced marriage. Nobody at the club is expected to diagnose any of this. The route is always the same: pass what you have seen to the DSL, per section 7. The BMABA safeguarding training our roles require covers these harms; keeping it current is how we stay competent to spot them.
7. Responding and reporting
If a child tells you something, or you see something:
- Listen. Let them talk. Do not interrupt or press for detail.
- Reassure them. Tell them they were right to speak up and that it is not their fault. Do not promise a particular outcome.
- Do not promise secrecy. Tell them you have to pass it on to keep them safe.
- Do not investigate. No questioning of others, no confronting anyone.
- Record the facts the same day. Write down what was said, verbatim where you can, with date, time, and who was present. Facts only, no opinions.
- Report to the DSL the same day. Sooner if you can.
The DSL then routes the concern:
Concern raised
|
v
Is anyone in immediate danger? -- yes --> Police: 999, immediately
|
no
v
Is it an allegation against an -- yes --> East Sussex LADO
adult who works with children? lado@eastsussex.gov.uk
| (or online form at eastsussex.gov.uk)
no within 1 working day
v
Concern about a child's welfare --------> East Sussex children's social care / SPoA
01323 464 222
0-19spoa@eastsussex.gov.uk
out of hours: Emergency Duty Service
01273 335 905
within 1 working day
Immediate danger means 999 yourself, at once — do not wait for the DSL.
Concerns about an adult at risk go to East Sussex adult social care via Health and Social Care Connect: 0345 60 80 191 (8am–8pm, 7 days a week; out of hours select option 2 for the Emergency Duty Service) or HSCC@eastsussex.gov.uk.
If an allegation concerns one of our coaches, that coach steps back from all contact with under-18s while the referral runs; the other coach runs sessions, and BMABA is informed.
Anyone unsure at any stage can call the NSPCC helpline on 0808 800 5000 for advice. Children can contact Childline free, 24/7, on 0800 1111.
8. Anti-bullying on the mat
These are safeguarding matters, not banter:
- targeting the same partner repeatedly to hurt or humiliate them;
- deliberate excessive force against smaller or newer partners;
- "initiation" practices of any kind;
- excluding someone from drilling, rounds, or the group.
Where anyone involved is under 18, it is handled under this policy. Where everyone involved is an adult, it is handled under the code of conduct.
9. Low-level concerns
A low-level concern is behaviour by an adult who works with children that falls short of the code of conduct or this policy but does not meet the threshold for a referral to the LADO or the police. A coach who keeps singling out one teenager for attention. An offer of a lift home. A joke that lands wrong. A boundary pushed once.
These are recorded, not shrugged off. Serious allegations are almost always preceded by smaller signs that nobody wrote down or joined together.
- Anyone can raise a low-level concern with the DSL — or with Ben or BMABA if it concerns the DSL, per section 2. Raising one is not an accusation.
- The DSL records every low-level concern in a log kept with the safeguarding records, and reviews the log for patterns: repeated concerns about one person, or the same behaviour from several people, trigger escalation even where no single entry would.
- The person concerned is spoken to openly where appropriate. Most low-level concerns end in a conversation and a correction.
- If a pattern or a new fact takes a concern over the referral threshold, it is handled under section 7 from that point.
10. Whistleblowing
Anyone — coach, member, parent, helper — who raises a safeguarding concern in good faith is protected. No reprisal, no exclusion, no cooling of treatment, whoever the concern is about. A concern that turns out to be unfounded is not misconduct; staying silent about a real one can be.
Raise concerns with the DSL, or per section 2 if the concern involves him. If you believe the club itself has not acted, or the concern is about how the club is run, go outside us:
- BMABA safeguarding team — safeguarding@bmaba.org.uk, or the secure form at bmaba.org.uk/safeguarding
- NSPCC Whistleblowing Advice Line — 0800 028 0285
11. 13–15 admissions assessment
No 13–15-year-old joins without this checklist, completed in writing:
- Parent/guardian conversation held — expectations, contact rules, and this policy explained.
- Maturity assessment by the head coach.
- Suitable drilling partners available at their size.
- Coaching ratio checked — the coach can closely supervise them in the sessions they will attend.
- Parental consent pack signed.
- Trial period of 4 sessions, then a review with the parent/guardian.
The decision — either way — is recorded and kept.
12. Records and confidentiality
Safeguarding records — including the low-level concerns log — are stored separately from membership records. Only the DSL and the deputy can access them. They are shared beyond that only with the police, the LADO, children's social care, adult social care, or BMABA in a safeguarding enquiry.
Retention follows the data handling summary: safeguarding records are kept for at least 7 years from the last entry, or until the person they concern turns 25, whichever is later.
13. Review
This policy is reviewed every July. It is also reviewed immediately after any safeguarding incident, and whenever BMABA safeguarding guidance changes.