Today the Church Times has a two page spread of articles following up on the IICSA hearings.
Leader comment: Safeguarding: the next steps
…These pages contain a range of different perspectives on how to tackle sexual abuse; and yet there is a common desire to make safeguarding comprehensive and effective. This sounds like stating the obvious. There is a danger, however, pointed out most clearly by Josephine Anne Stein, that the type of safeguarding being promoted throughout the Church is modelled on a pattern designed to protect institutions from prosecution. A Christian organisation must do better than this…
Martin Warner Safeguarding: what we got wrong, and the steps we are taking to put it right
Linda Woodhead Forget culture. It’s a new theology we need
Anonymous: Sex-offender asks: are only the righteous called to repentance?
Josephine Anne Stein: The safeguarding overhaul that’s needed
…Safeguarding in the Church of England has burgeoned into a procedural, bureaucratic, and bloated industry that does not appear to be effective either in responding to abuse or in preventing further abuse. When checked earlier this year, the C of E’s safeguarding policy posted on the National Safeguarding Team’s website consisted of 364 separate pages…
…THERE are alternative approaches to safeguarding within the healthcare sector, grounded in the development of professional ethics, the regular assessment of fitness to practise, and professional discipline.
There are also alternatives to formal safeguarding complaints procedures that combine knowledge and experience from occupational psychology, specialist social work, and restorative justice, much of which is unfamiliar within the Church.
Furthermore, there are inexpensive and empowering ways to improve knowledge and understanding of both the causes of and responses to abuse in different constituencies within the Church — a bottom-up approach in contrast to current centralised, top-down training. If everyone in the Church is responsible for safeguarding, everyone is also responsible for ownership of safeguarding…
Please could someone explain to me, in simple terms and without jargon, why we don’t just tell the police?
DBS checks are over-relied upon – in this parish, anyway. All PCC members must submit to DBS checks regardless of contact with children and the vulnerable – yet adults who work with children, training servers, Sunday school helpers etc are not interviewed or required to provide references. Nor, come to that are PCC members, apart from the requirement for in-house sponsors. This approach leads, in my view, to an illusion of safety – ‘Must be OK – he/she is DBS checked’.
In response to Stanley Monkhouse: of course a church (any church) should tell the police if potential abuse cases are discovered, but the church (any church) should look to do better than this, both in terms of prevention of such cases in the first place, and care for the victims after the event. No church seems to be able to do either as well as it might, and the implementation of any procedures always seems to be heavily bureaucratic, which makes many people doubt whether they are actually there to prevent abuse and aid victims, but rather to allow the… Read more »
Stanley – the local protocols vary and, for example (though terminology is changing all the time) the LADO (Local Authority Designated Officer) may be the correct initial point of contact. But very important to report, and very important for people to know that they can report over the heads of local structures.
But more seriously, if you are in the position of telling the police, something bad has likely gone wrong, and the point of safeguarding is prevention as well – stopping things from going wrong actually keeps people safe; a referral simply means they probably weren’t.
Good question – and one that I’ve been asking myself. The answer is – simply – that sometimes you have a concern that may not be significant enough (on its own) to warrant reporting to the police. In that case, the place to contact is the local authority social services safeguarding team. Every local authority with a social services department has one of these – just look on their website. They usually have good information and clear advice on who to contact. (Usually, it will say if it is an emergency or someone is in immediate danger, dial 999.) Of… Read more »
I’m with Fr Stanley. All this reportage has to do with criminal behaviour. Church people are perfectly calm about calling the police when the vestry is burgled. The insurers enter the picture after the police report is made. Why are they not similarly calm about reporting sexual behaviour that is criminal, especially if it’s committed by a cleric? Oh yes, the insurers get there first…
Sometimes the behaviour people are worried about is not criminal in itself. But if it was reported to one specific body, that body would be able to connect it with other reports and join up dots that might otherwise not be joined up.
Sure, just report the victim’s concerns to the police. In fact, why not just tell victims to call 101 themselves so the Church doesn’t need to be involved at all? Much better. That way bishops can’t be responsible. Meanwhile, while the police slowly investigate the abuser can continue to molest other victims. None of the survivors have had anything to say about that, have they? Matthew Ineson anybody? And, if the police take the allegation seriously (believe me, they often don’t) Victim Support can take care of the victim. As a Church we obviously don’t have any responsibility to care… Read more »
The church of course has a duty of care to survivors, but it also has a duty to report any reasonable suspicions to the authorities. The two duties complement one other.
Interesting, in this context; what is going on in the Roman Catholic sphere, at Ampleforth School, which seems to have la problem with the Charity Commission because it does not meet the government’s standards for the maintenance of student ‘safety’.
Here’s what the Charity Commission has actually done:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/charity-commission-appoints-interim-manager-to-ampleforth-abbey-and-the-st-laurence-education-trust
Random observations. More and more diocesan spending on safeguarding. Fewer and fewer pockets to plunder. More and more large parish churches unable to afford even the cost of maintenance (I’m thinking of one of mine) let alone diocesan share. This vicarage is within about 30 miles of six diocesan HQs and, presumably, six separate safeguarding teams. The winter night shelter for homeless, housed by one of my churches, has been staffed by over 100 volunteers, hardly any of whom were C of E (not old enough?). Draw your own conclusions. Close the parish churches: the people who’ll moan will be… Read more »
Safeguarding is not solely about criminal behaviour. It is not solely about clergy having sex with children. It is purely indicative of this lack of understanding in comments here, that the church has the problem it has. Safeguarding is an ‘us’ thing not an ‘othering’.