**1. Introduction**

The shared knowledge of educators about the etiology of sexual abuse of students by school employees – what to look for, how to respond, and what actions might reduce risk – is simply inadequate to the scope of the harm. A report from the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO), *Child Welfare Federal Agencies Can Better Support State Efforts to Prevent and Respond to Sexual Abuse by School Personnel* [1], noted the lack of research on the patterns of sexual abuse in schools. Additionally, an earlier GAO report, *K-12 Education Selected Cases of Public and Private Schools that Hired or Retained Individuals with Histories of Sexual Misconduct* [2], reached similar conclusions.

The problem is three-fold. (1) Ten percent of public school students report being sexually abused by a school employee [3]. (2) There is little in the existing research that identifies and describes the school culture, patterns, and conditions in which

educator sexual misconduct occurs. (3) Because no one has systematically documented the school culture and the behaviors and patterns of adults who sexually abuse children in schools, school professionals fail to understand what patterns and behaviors should trigger concern, supervision, investigation, and/or reporting.

Stopping sexual misconduct directed toward students means understanding the process that adults use to prepare students to be abused so that they do not tell, do not fight, and acquiesce. This process, called grooming, has the purpose of gaining student trust, as well as the trust of parents and colleagues.

### **2. Review of the literature**

Grooming behaviors and patterns are red flags, signaling that something is not quite right and that attention and monitoring, and supervision are needed. Most employee to student sexual misconduct in educational organizations involves a pattern of "preparing" the student for the misconduct so that the student trusts the employee. Rarely does the misconduct begin with unwanted sexual touching, although that occurs later in the process.

Sexual misconduct in schools and other youth serving organizations nearly always begins with grooming. Kenneth Lanning, retired supervisory Special Agent from the FBI and a seminal researcher of criminal sexual behavior since the 1970's, describes grooming as "specific nonviolent techniques used by some child molesters to gain access to and control of their child victims" [4]. The patterns, now referred to as grooming, were at one time referred to as seduction within the prevention community. That label changed overtime as researchers learned more about how children are persuaded into targets. The change in terminology had more to do with the perception of the words than the actual behaviors. Lanning and others use the words interchangeably to describe "patterned behavior designed to create opportunities for sexual assault, minimize victim resistance or withdrawal, and reduce disclosure or belief." [4].

Jim Tanner and Stephen Brake [5] developed a framework for understanding the grooming process. They make a distinction between grooming the individual and grooming the "environment. Because offenders need to find potential targets, gain their trust, reduce discovery by others, and reduce the target's credibility if discovered, they groom victims to "overcome resistance, maintain access, and minimize disclosure" [5]. Offenders need access to targets, need to be desirable to targets, and need to convince the target that everything that is happening is normal. The goal is compliance from the child, often misinterpreted as consent. Children aren't legally or emotionally able to consent – this is not an equal interaction – therefore compliance is used by the offender as a stand-in for consent, drawing the child into a belief system that the child has control or power when that is not the case.

Offenders must not only gain the trust of the victim, but also that of the community in which he or she works as well as the environment of the child. Typically, the offender grooms the work and community environment first, then grooms potential victims, then the actual victim or victim's family. Prior to physical sexual abuse of the potential target, the offender seeks to be someone admired by colleagues, recognized in the community as a productive and valuable member, and appreciated by parents as someone who is helpful to the success of their children.

Environmental and individual grooming can occur at the same time, but commonly the offender has first established his or herself as a highly regarded education and/or coaching professional. Tanner and Brake [5] have summarized this process, displayed in **Table 1**.

*School Employee Sexual Misconduct: Red Flag Grooming Behaviors by Perpetrators DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99234*


#### **Table 1.**

*Tanner and Blake's summary of child victim grooming.*

Grooming is rarely perceived as a violent act. Instead, it consists of actions that bond the target to the offender such as time spent together, secrets, gifts, special attention. The process presents the offender to the child as kind, gentle, understanding, caring, generous, charming, and accessible. A goal of the offender is to be desirable, needed, and wanted by the child. As the child is progressively drawn-in to this "special" bond, the offender assures the child that the relationship is "normal", often by telling the target that he or she is more mature than the other students, or smarter, or extra special. The more an offender can minimize the nature of the offense and shape it into an acceptable relationship -- counselor, teacher who cares, friend, father figure, peer -- the more the student is led to believe that what is happening is acceptable.

Generally, the only time the offender uses threatening methods are when the student tries to stop the predator after the grooming period and well into the physical or emotional sexual misconduct. At this point the offender uses threats, guilt and fear to keep the student involved. Most grooming and sexual misconduct toward students by adults occurs right in the school: in empty classrooms, in hallways, in offices. Sometimes the abuse is played out in front of other students. It is not unusual for a teacher to take a student into a storage room attached to the classroom and have sexual intercourse while the rest of the class does seat work. Recess and lunch are prime offending times.

Preventing sexual misconduct and abuse directed toward students requires adult bystanders and other students to understand the "red flags" of grooming behavior. The purpose of this study was to identify and describe grooming behaviors that school employees use in their quest to cross sexual boundaries with students.
