Brenton Rice – Founder, Business Owner and Consultant.

Qualifications in Policing, Intelligence Analysis, Restorative Justice, Health & Safety, together with a raft of life experiences, has enabled Brenton to become an authority on grooming behaviours of child sexual offenders.

“The journey to train parents around this subject began with a conversation with my partner, a schoolteacher.

Brenda came home one day and complained about the behaviour of a teacher who had a 10-year-old girl sitting on his knee.

Although there were policies and procedures in place, there was no clear process, nor had there been any training.”

As a former investigator I drafted some questions:

• Have all staff signed a Code of Conduct agreeing to a process?
• What would people think are inappropriate behaviours?
• Do the behaviours fit within the criminal profile of a child sex offender?
• In any organisation involving children, are all staff trained on what to look out for?
• If there is an incident, what evidence should be recorded at the time?
• What steps if any, should a witness take at the time?
• Who does the witness report the event to?
• What steps should be taken next?
• What is the process for debrief?
• How does an organisation maintain a clear and transparent process?

While researching potential solutions, I realised that:

• There is a still a huge amount of offending occurring to children under 16.
• The effects of children losing their innocence has known life-long consequences.
• The low self-worth often repeats into generational abuse.
• There are only four behaviours to be aware of, and can be taught to parents and children
• A simple prevention model would bring an end to the silence that has allowed these terrible crimes to continue.

I could not find a prevention model that was simple, or that affordable, so I created:

• An organisational ‘Code of Conduct’
• A training course for parents to teach them and their children what to look out for.
• https://safeto16.nz was born