ARISE · Safeguarding
How children are kept safe.
Children of classes 6 to 10 come to a Nurture Centre five evenings a week. This page sets out, without softening, the rules that protect them, the people who are answerable, and the ways anyone can raise a concern — including the ways that go nowhere near ARISE.
You do not need our permission, and you do not have to tell us first.
If you believe a child is at risk — at one of our centres or anywhere else — use one of these. They are not part of ARISE. They are free, they are open to a child as well as to an adult, and no one here will know you used them unless you choose to say so.
Childline · 1098
The national helpline for children. Free from any phone. A child may call it themselves.
Police · 112
Or 100. Ask for the Special Juvenile Police Unit if the matter concerns a child.
The Child Welfare Committee
The statutory body for the care and protection of children in your district, with the District Child Protection Unit alongside it.
The POCSO e-Box
The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights takes a complaint directly, online. So does your State Commission.
ARISE actively tells people to use these. Any attempt by anybody in this movement to discourage, delay, condition or punish the use of an external route is misconduct of the gravest kind. Nobody in ARISE — no officer, no trustee, no college, no partner — can stand between a person and a report.
The other routes, and what is displayed at every centre
Alongside the four above: the District Child Protection Unit · the host institution’s own safeguarding officer · the State Women & Child Development Department · and, where the matter concerns a woman at work, the routes under the POSH Act.
Every centre displays a child-facing contact card where a child can read it, and gives a copy to every child and every parent. It carries the Centre Mentor and the named deputy, the Designated Safeguarding Officer, the campus safeguarding officer, and the outside numbers above. It says three things in a child’s own words: if a grown-up asks you to keep a secret from your parents, tell someone · no grown-up here should ever be alone with you where no one can see · telling is never wrong, and you will never be in trouble for telling.
At enrolment, every parent is given the names and contact particulars of the safeguarding role-holders, and the outside routes, in writing. A role that falls vacant is filled before the next session runs.
Four rules a centre cannot open without.
These are not aspirations and they are not relaxed for any centre, any campus or any person. A centre that cannot meet them does not run a session.
Two named adults, every session
Two named adults are present from fifteen minutes before the session begins to fifteen minutes after it ends — one of them the Centre Mentor or the named deputy. No child is ever left with a single adult, and no adult remains with a child after the session ends.
The screening file, and the certificate
Nobody has contact with a child until every item of their screening file is complete — associates, Centre Mentors, volunteers, partners’ volunteers, guests and vendors alike. And no unsupervised or sole-adult contact before the Police Clearance Certificate has issued. That rule admits of no exception.
The campus annexure
Every centre-hosting agreement carries a written annexure of five rules for the site itself. No centre opens before it exists — and this is the one requirement nothing relaxes.
The six named roles, all filled
Six safeguarding and data roles are held by named people at all times. No centre operates while any one of them is vacant.
What supervised contact means while a certificate is pending
Supervised contact may begin on a completed screening file with the Police Clearance Certificate applied for and the receipt on file. Nothing begins earlier.
Through that period the person is on probation: never the sole adult · the Centre Mentor or named deputy present for the whole session · no communication with a child outside the session · no transporting a child · no photographing a child.
Where a certificate is refused or comes back adverse, contact stops at once and the matter goes to the Designated Safeguarding Officer.
How often a clearance is re-verified is set centrally and published.
The campus annexure — the five rules in full
1. A defined centre footprint within the premises; the rest of the premises out of bounds to the children and to the activity.
2. Two named adults present from fifteen minutes before the session begins to fifteen minutes after it ends.
3. Attendance called at arrival and at departure; no child released except to a parent or to a person named by the parent.
4. A lit and supervised waiting area.
5. A named adult responsible for the last child to leave.
Alongside these stand the standing conditions of the environment: every room visible, doors open or windowed, no session or conversation in a closed or unobserved room, toilets reachable without passing an unobserved area and separate for girls and boys where the premises allow, fire exits clear, first aid in date, emergency numbers displayed. Not more than twenty children to one associate — and if the ratio cannot be held, the session stops rather than continuing at a lower standard.
Who is answerable for a child.
Safeguarding here does not rest on goodwill. It rests on named individuals who can be reached, and on one person at every centre whose whole job is the safety of the children in it.
The Centre Mentor
Every centre has a Centre Mentor: a screened safeguarding professional appointed by the Rebuild India Foundation, who is not an associate, and who is the centre’s Youth Protection Officer. A club may have up to eight. The Centre Mentor receives every concern raised at the centre, makes the child safe, notifies the Designated Safeguarding Officer the same day, and signs each session record on the day it happens.
Because the Centre Mentor is not an associate, they validate nothing of their own. No associate signs their own session register, and there is no unsigned session.
| Role | What it carries |
|---|---|
| Designated Safeguarding Officer | Receives every concern from every centre and makes the report to the police or the Special Juvenile Police Unit where the law requires — without seeking anyone’s approval. |
| Deputy Designated Safeguarding Officer | Takes the concern where it is about the Officer, or about a Faculty Advisor, an officer or a trustee. |
| Person in Charge, POCSO s.21(2) | The person on whom the statutory duty of an institution falls. This person cannot veto or delay a report. |
| Board Safeguarding Trustee | The Foundation’s Board-level holder of the regime, and the person told when someone reports outside the internal line. |
| Data Protection Contact | Answerable for personal data, including every child’s record. See the privacy notice. |
| Grievance Officer | Receives grievances concerning a Nurture Centre. See contact and grievances. |
Swipe the table sideways →
The Centre Safeguarding Focal Point at each site is the Centre Mentor or the named deputy. The names and numbers of all role-holders are published at the centre and given to every parent, and are kept current.
What happens when a child tells someone.
Every adult at a centre knows this by heart. The first duty is to listen and to write down what was said in the child’s own words — not to interrogate, not to promise secrecy, and not to investigate.
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Receive, and record
Listen. Do not question the child, do not promise to keep it secret, do not try to establish whether it is true. Write down what was said, in the child’s own words, at once.
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Tell the Focal Point and the Safeguarding Officer — the same hour
The Centre Mentor or named deputy, and the Designated Safeguarding Officer, with the written record. Where the concern is about the Focal Point, the Officer, a Faculty Advisor, an officer or a trustee, it goes straight to the Deputy and the Board Safeguarding Trustee and to the police — and the person concerned is not told.
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The report is made — the same day
The Designated Safeguarding Officer reports to the police or the Special Juvenile Police Unit where the law requires, without asking any officer, trustee, college or partner for permission. The entry number under POCSO s.19(2) is obtained and placed on the file. That number is the proof the report was made.
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The child is protected — the same day
The person concerned is suspended from all contact with children pending the outcome. The child is supported. The parent is informed, unless informing them would place the child at risk.
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The twenty-four-hour personal duty
Telling someone inside ARISE does not extinguish your own duty under POCSO s.19(1). If you are not told within twenty-four hours that a report has been made to the police, report it yourself — and tell the Board Safeguarding Trustee that you have done so.
Nothing in the internal grievance process of ARISE applies to any matter requiring report under POCSO, the Juvenile Justice Act or the POSH Act. No internal process, appeal, review or committee delays a report by a single hour. A person who reports in good faith incurs no liability and suffers no detriment in this movement.
A concern raised in front of the children
The Balasabha — the children’s own assembly on a Friday — is run by the children, and every child who wishes to speak is heard.
A safeguarding concern raised there is not handled there. It is taken at once by the Centre Mentor under the disclosure procedure above, and it enters the day’s session record.
Where a centre may stand, and who carries the risk.
A school campus is excluded
A centre may stand in any suitable location, and a college campus is preferred. A school campus is expressly excluded — a prohibition, not a preference.
Why a school is not used
A centre inside a school blurs into the school it is meant to supplement, and the children read it as more school.
More seriously, the reporting line would be compromised. A disclosure about a member of school staff, made inside that school, to adults who depend on that school’s goodwill, is a disclosure at risk. A centre must stand where a child can tell without fear.
A Nurture Centre supplements formal schooling and never displaces it. Whether each enrolled child is still in formal school is one of the things every centre measures.
The Foundation carries everything
The Rebuild India Foundation is the sole party to every centre-hosting agreement, and the sole holder of every liability arising under it. The club is named as the operator of the centre — never as the principal.
What that means for a college, a faculty member or an associate
No college, no Faculty Advisor, no office-bearer and no associate carries the liability of a centre. The agreement is signed by the Foundation and the host, and the risk sits with the Foundation.
The Foundation also bears every cost of a centre — premises, materials, utilities, safety and first aid. No child pays, no family pays, no associate pays, and the host receives no charge.
Public liability, professional indemnity and trustee indemnity cover is among the standing legal items being placed before further centres open.
Where the regime stands today.
The youth-protection regime set out on this page is in force and is the standing instruction at every centre. It is applied in full today, and it stands for formal adoption by the Foundation’s Board. We would rather tell you exactly that than imply a finality the record does not carry.
The one thing a centre does not wait for is that formal adoption. What it does wait for is everything that protects a child. The two-adult rule, the screening file, the Police Clearance Certificate rule, the campus annexure, the disclosure procedure and the six named roles are all conditions of opening, and not one of them is relaxed in any degree, for any centre, any campus or any person.
Certification, audit and review — the checks that run afterwards
No centre opens uncertified. Certification requires the policy in force; the six roles filled, published and none vacant; every adult screened, trained and cleared; the Centre Mentor appointed by the Foundation with a named deputy trained to the same standard; consent, conduct, reporting and record systems in place with the external routes published; the campus annexure complete for the site; and a signed checklist confirmed by the Centre.
Certification runs for twelve months, aligned to the clearance cycle and the annual safety audit, and is renewed on review. It may be suspended or withdrawn on any breach — and a centre whose certification is suspended does not run a session.
A safety audit of every centre is conducted at least once in every twelve months, recorded, and its findings closed out before the next.
Each club sends the Centre three lines a month: associates active · sessions run · incidents. An incident is never held for the return — it is reported at once under the twenty-four-hour duty, and the return simply records that there was one. No centre is ever compared favourably on a low incident count.
Conduct, and the one line that is absolute
A breach of the youth-protection regime is dealt with under the movement’s disciplinary process with the utmost seriousness, and reported to the authorities where the law requires.
No contact with a child is permitted during any period in which an associate’s earn opportunities and privileges stand withdrawn under the Professional Conduct Register.
The Professional Conduct Register never applies to a child. It is a record of the professional conduct of associates and of nothing else. How conduct is governed
If you are worried about a child.
Call Childline 1098 or the Police on 112 now. Do not wait for ARISE, and do not wait for anyone’s permission. If you also want us to know, tell us — but tell them first.