The structures required
to safeguard children from abuse
5.1 Carrying through our recommendations
on preventing child abuse and responding to allegations
depends critically on the Church being an effective and
aware organisation at every level: the parish, the diocese
and religious order and nationally. This chapter summarises
our proposals in this area.
The parish
5.2 It is in the parish that children
are directly involved in church activities: in services,
at Sunday school, in youth clubs and so on. Consequently
it is here that awareness needs to be at its highest,
that policies and prevention strategies need to be clearly
understood and that knowledge of what to do when allegations
are made needs to be widespread. What is said in the rest
of this chapter about arrangements at other levels is
designed primarily to support parishes.
5.3 In some dioceses individual lay people
in parishes have taken on a special responsibility for
child protection matters: ensuring that policies are known
and understood, that awareness is raised, and that principles
are worked through into everyday practice. This is clearly
an important responsibility. We understand that members
of the Church have willingly come forward to do this knowing
that they will be supported by their parish priest, by
the local members of the Church and by wider structures.
To our mind, this indicates the desire that there is in
many parishes to ensure that the Church is a safe organisation
for children. We recommend that every parish priest should
appoint a lay child protection representative with these
general responsibilities:
to ensure
- that diocesan policies and procedures are known
and followed,
- that awareness is raised, and
- that principles are worked through into everyday
practice.
The parish child protection representative
does not need to be full-time, nor to be a professional
or an expert. He/she will be able to draw on such people
for support.
The diocese
5.4 As noted earlier, the 1994 Guidelines
advised each diocese to identify a representative or "delegate"
to "attend to issues of child abuse". In fact
these delegates have often taken on a wide range of responsibilities
in relation to child protection, and are usually known
as Child Protection Co-ordinators. We welcome
the fact that each diocese has a diocesan Child Protection
Co-ordinator. They will need to be appointed by and directly
responsible to the bishop, and to have his full
confidence and support as well as that of other senior
clergy and lay people. They will be responsible for the
effective implementation of policies and practice throughout
the diocese, and will be the first line of contact with
the statutory agencies (social services and the police)
and in particular the statutory Area Child Protection
Committees. They will themselves be the first line of
support for the parish child protection representatives
already recommended.
5.5 The job of the Child Protection
Co-ordinator and his/her Team is
(a) ensuring that the diocese
has implemented guidelines, based on Safe From Harm,
to prevent abuse, and regularly reviews its performance;
(b) being proactive in helping
parishes and others in the diocese apply the guidelines
- by giving advice on how to apply them and how to make
the necessary contacts and checks, by facilitating training
and awareness events, and so on; and
(c) overseeing arrangements
for responding to allegations and for risk assessment
as described in Chapter Four.
5.6 So far these diocesan Co-ordinators
have invariably been priests. As we have just said it
is most important that they have the full confidence and
support of the bishop and parish priests, but we
do not consider it essential that they should be priests
themselves. It is also important that CPCs have
the confidence of victims, the victims' families and friends,
the statutory agencies and the wider community.
5.7 The Child Protection Co-ordinator
does not need to be professionally qualified, nor does
s/he necessarily need to be employed full-time on child
protection matters though we believe that in many cases
this may be desirable, at least for the present until
fully effective arrangements are in place throughout the
diocese. What s/he does need is the time, resources,
and supporting arrangements (including access to professional
support) to do the job properly. We are aware
of arrangements in one part of the country where three
dioceses have collaborated to fund a child care professional
to support them, especially in the area of training and
consistency. This seems to work well, and we commend these
cross-diocesan arrangements. They may be particularly
useful in more rural parts of the country although we
think it important that each diocese has its own CPC.
We have also been told of a very successful arrangement
in one diocese where a CPC is mentored by a child care
expert. We believe that CPCs generally would benefit from
such an arrangement.
5.8 We do not believe that there is a
single blue-print for the structures a diocese should
have in place under the Co-ordinator. However, we
commend arrangements (based on one diocese) where there
is an overarching Child Protection Policy Team having
the oversight of further teams focusing on (i) implementation
and training, (ii) response to allegations and risk assessment,
and (iii) pastoral care. The Child Protection
Policy Team is chaired by the Co-ordinator, and includes
clerical and lay members of the diocese, social services,
police and legal representatives and experts on child
abuse. An illustrative chart of these arrangements is
at Annex Three.
Religious orders
5.9 Members of religious orders will
be subject to the policies and arrangements of dioceses
to which they are seconded. Nonetheless, if the whole
Church in England and Wales is to have a fully effective
approach to child protection, it is essential
that religious orders that have contact with children
also appoint Child Protection Co-ordinators.
These will take on a comparable role to that of the diocesan
CPCs in ensuring awareness and appropriate systems and
arrangements within their religious orders. There needs
to be very close liaison between diocesan and religious
order Child Protection Co-ordinators.
A National Child
Protection Unit
5.10 There is at present an annual meeting
of the diocesan CPCs but no permanent arrangements at
national level. We believe that there is a further essential
element of support to parishes and to diocesan and religious
order Co-ordinators which needs to be put in place. This
is a compact national facility, which we call a
National Child Protection Unit, that would be able to
give them moral support and expert advice, to collect
and disseminate good practice, to hold databases of training
facilities and other useful information, and to maintain
the central confidential database of information that
we have recommended in Chapter Three (3.18). The Unit
would liaise with the statutory agencies (including the
Criminal Records Bureau) at national level, with professional
bodies and leading charities in the field and with the
other Churches. It would also have a valuable role in
collecting data, monitoring that effective arrangements
are implemented in dioceses and religious orders, and
in seeking to secure improvements where that is not so.
It should bring any apparent failure in diocesan or religious
order arrangements immediately to the attention of the
bishop or religious superior and make an annual
report to diocesan bishops and religious superiors on
the effectiveness of arrangements in each diocese and
order. It should also make an annual
report, which we suggest should be published, to the Bishops'
Conference on the position overall.
5.11 Amongst early tasks for the Unit
should be the preparation and dissemination of good practice
on job descriptions and advice on databases and information
gathering, including securing appropriate software.
5.12 The right size for the Unit will
need to be determined in the light of experience, but
we believe that it will need to be headed by a recognised
child protection expert and to have a small permanent
staff and the resources to maintain databases, procure
external advice from time to time, etc. It will need to
be properly funded.
5.13 The Unit will itself need strong
support from the bishops and religious superiors and we
believe that, as with some other central institutions
of the Church in England and Wales, one of the bishops
should have particular responsibility for it. We also
believe that the Unit will benefit if it has a standing
advisory (or reference) group with which it can consult
and discuss issues, and which will include professionals
in the field and representatives of the relevant statutory
agencies (social services, police and probation service).
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