Coach onboarding checklist for martial arts academies
A new coach usually starts the same week they are offered the job, and the paperwork follows, or does not. Here is what should be on file before they lead a kids class, in the order it is easiest to get.
Before the first class
Get the coach's legal name and date of birth, and tell them what you check. Then check it. A public records screen by legal name and date of birth against sex offender registries and state prison records takes seconds, and the answer should exist before the coach is alone with a student, not after.
Write down the date it ran and what came back, in the honest form: no matching records were returned by the sources that answered. If something did return, stop and follow a process. What that process looks like.
The four documents
- SafeSport training certificate. Abuse prevention training completed with the U.S. Center for SafeSport directly. How a jiu jitsu coach gets it.
- Mandated reporter training certificate. Requirements differ by state. What the training covers.
- CPR and first aid certification, with its issue and expiry dates visible on the card.
- The academy's code of conduct, signed. Not acknowledged in conversation. Signed, with the date and the version of the document they read, so nobody later argues about which rules applied. What the document should contain.
Coaches rarely have any of these on the day they start. That is normal. What matters is that the academy knows which are missing, and by when they are due.
What to write down
For each coach: the date screened and the result in plain words. For each certificate: the issue date, the expiry date, and where the document is. For the code of conduct: who signed, when, and which version. And the coach's role, because an assistant who leads the kids warm up is a coach for every purpose that matters here.
A credential nobody can find is the same as one never obtained. What a record is for.
How the program runs it, on a phone
At a Safe Academy 360 academy the owner adds the coach with their legal name, email, role, and date of birth, confirms that the coach has been told about the screen and has agreed, and the screen runs on the spot. The coach then gets a link that works on their phone. They confirm their details, which is what runs the screen if the owner did not, upload whichever certificates they have with them, and sign the code of conduct on the screen with their full legal name. Anything they do not have on them they add later from their own account.
Each upload is reviewed as a document and recorded with its own expiry date. When all five items are complete, the coach receives their own certificate by email, and the academy's status moves one coach closer to certified. The credential in detail.
Assistants count
The most common gap is not the head coach. It is the blue belt who runs the kids warm up, the teenager who helps on Saturdays, and the adult member who steps in when the instructor is away. If they lead, correct, or supervise children, they should be on the list, screened, and trained like anyone else. A parent asking "who else is on the mat with the kids" is asking about them.
Keeping it current
Every item expires on its own clock. CPR cards lapse. Training providers set their own renewal cycles. The screen is run again each month, so its date advances on its own; the certificates do not. Put the expiry dates somewhere you will see them before they pass, not after. Why a one time badge is not enough.