Understanding Grooming

On this page we provide an overview of grooming as it relates to child sexual abuse. We explore what grooming is and what actions a club or association can take to prevent grooming.

What is grooming?

Grooming is the word used to describe the behaviours an adult, who intends to sexually abuse a child or young person, engages in. The behaviours can seem insignificant or involve small breaches of policy and rules. The intention, however, is to build the trust of the child and manipulate the trusted adults around the child to allow the perpetrator unsupervised access, where they will later betray their trust and sexually abuse the child or young person. Grooming can occur in physical or online environments and will often involve both.  While the specific details vary between commonwealth, state and territory laws, grooming is a criminal offence in Australia. 

Grooming behaviours can be difficult to detect because offenders focus on establishing secrecy as their behaviour gradually escalates from subtle, seemingly insignificant actions to sexual abuse.  

Many aspects of community sport can create opportunity for grooming to occur but there are many things sporting clubs can do to prevent it.

How grooming occurs

There are a number of stages that may occur throughout the process of grooming. However, not all of these stages need to have occurred and they may occur in any order. 

The National Office of Child Safety explains some of these stages as:

• The child or young person is targeted. While any child can be sexually abused, some perpetrators may target children that are particularly vulnerable. For example, children and young people that are socially isolated or are part of a marginalised social, economic, racial or cultural group. In sport, the emotional desire to win or be selected in a team could make a child more vulnerable.
• Building trust. Perpetrators often present as trustworthy, reputable, generous, and likeable. They may build a child or young person’s trust through special attention or gifts. In some situations, whole families or organisations can be groomed because of the perceived trustworthiness of a perpetrator. There are many opportunities in a sport club or association for this level of trust to be established e.g. coaches, committee members, long standing members.
• Isolation. Perpetrators may progressively isolate a child or young person from supportive family and friends. They may seek to fill roles in a child or young person’s life that provide practical or emotional support. This may be finding opportunities for personal coaching or travelling alone to and from training.
• Sexualisation. Perpetrators may gradually introduce sexualised content or discussions to a child or young person to normalise this behaviour. They will often then exploit this to encourage or coerce the child to engage in sexual activity, produce child sexual abuse imagery or participate in sexualised in-person or virtual chats. This behaviour may escalate slowly or quickly.
• Control. Perpetrators often use secrecy, shame, blame, coercion and threats to maintain control in order to carry out the abuse and ensure the child or young person’s silence.
   

Preventing grooming

To minimise the opportunity for grooming to occur, everyone in your club or association should be aware of and committed to upholding child safe practices. Encourage your members and community to speak to the committee if they observe seemingly insignificant breaches of child safe practices. 

The Sport Integrity Australia Child Safe Practices are a set of rules to guide sports to help prevent grooming. They provide guidance on: 

• Professional boundaries
• Use of language and tone of voice
• Positive guidance (discipline)
• Supervision
• Use of electronic or online communications
• Photographs or video of children and young people
• Physical contact with children and young people
• Overnight stays and sleeping arrangements
• Change room arrangements
• Use, possession or supply of alcohol or drugs to children and young people
• Parent/carer involvement
• Transporting children and young people
• Drop off and pick up of children and young people.

Implementing child safe practices (or codes of behaviour) is important because these guidelines are designed to remove unsafe behaviours from clubs by ensuring everyone understands what safe and unsafe behaviour is.  

Read more about child safe practices in your sport’s safeguarding children and young people policy, the Sport Integrity Australia resources Children and Young People Safe Practices Do’s and Don’ts Guide and Guide for managing high-risk activities: Child safeguarding practices in sport.