Help for Parishes

• Safeguarding: Fundamental to our Vision
• The Parish Safeguarding Handbook
• The Parish Safeguarding Officer (PSO) role
• The Parish Safeguarding Checklist
• Parish Safeguarding Policy Template – Promoting a Safer Church
• Best Practice Guidance for Working with Children
• Best Practice Guidance for Working with Vulnerable Adults
• Parish Safeguarding Dashboard
• Safeguarding Training Events

Safeguarding: Fundamental to our Vision

We are committed to offering a warm and safe welcome to all attending worship, especially to children and vulnerable adults. As a fundamental part of our diocesan vision Living God’s Love, we are determined that our churches will be places where people can discover and deepen their sense of God’s love for them and are drawn to join in prayer, worship and the life of the church.

Policy

The Diocese of St Albans has adopted the National Policy ‘Promoting a Safer Church’ and is guided by its foundations.

1. Promote a safer environment and culture
2. Safely recruit and support all those with any responsibility related to children and vulnerable adults within the Church
3. Respond promptly to every safeguarding concern or allegation
4. Care pastorally for victims/survivors of abuse and other affected persons
5. Care pastorally for those who are the subject of concerns or allegations of abuse and other affected persons
6. Respond to those that may pose a present risk to others

Survivors First

Safeguarding is not just a matter of words. Where things go wrong, we put survivors first, strive to care for those who have been harmed and follow best practice, working with all statutory and other authorities to deal effectively with harm and to learn the lessons from every situation that will make our church and our world a safer place for all.

Practice – for Parish Officers

In these web pages, you will find links to a range of policy documents and resources to help you ensure that safeguarding in our parishes is of the highest standard and our churches are a place of welcome and safety for the young and vulnerable. I commend them to you.

Every day, throughout our churches much valued work with children, young people and vulnerable groups is undertaken, often on a voluntary basis. The contribution they make in nurturing and guiding our children in the Christian way of life can never be over-estimated.

Sadly, it is a fact that occasionally some adults may attempt to infiltrate any organisation to abuse children or young people. We therefore need to create and maintain a culture of informed vigilance to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and vulnerable adults.

Safeguarding involves everyone, and we all have a duty to protect children and vulnerable adults from harm, abuse or neglect. It is important that we all are aware of the issues around safeguarding within the church. It is only with everyone’s attentiveness and assistance that we can make the church as safe a place as it can be.

These safeguarding pages are not only intended to provide ease of reference for Parish Safeguarding Officers and Lead Recruiters, but are for all those with a safeguarding responsibility, or who will have regular contact with, or a duty of care for children and/or vulnerable adults within the church community.

This guidance is not intended to be exhaustive and further advice or direction will always be available from the Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser (DSA) .

The Safeguarding Documents page will be regularly updated and you are encouraged to share good practice documents by forwarding them to the Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser (DSA) at safeguarding@stalbans.anglican.org

The DSA will ensure that all relevant and up to date documents are published, are available in one place and can be easily referenced by you.

There is access every day to the helpline number for “Thirtyone:eight” on 0303 003 1111 or 01322 517817 (Option 2). Please bear in mind that outside office hours, the helpline should be used for urgent advice only.

“Thirtyone:eight” is an independent Christian charity which helps individuals, organisations, charities, faith and community groups to protect vulnerable people from abuse.

The Parish Safeguarding Handbook

The Parish Safeguarding Handbook is full of helpful, up-to-date information for incumbents and church officers.

Please download the Parish SafeGuarding HandBook and read this important information here.

Parish Safeguarding Dashboard

safeguardingdashboards.org.uk

• The Parish Safeguarding Dashboard was introduced to St Albans Diocese in 2019.
• It is free of charge to parishes.
• The dashboard is a way of keeping all your safeguarding records together, at a glance, with an easy system that tells you whether you are compliant with the many House of Bishops’ safeguarding requirements.
• This is not over and above what you already do, but puts all your records together in one place.
• It is easy to use and has been extremely well received by all parishes in other dioceses.
• Please see the attached below and watch this short video:

• Not only will this give you the chance to monitor all your safeguarding responsibilities in one place, but it will enable the diocesan safeguarding team to have oversight of all the parishes that participate and help us identify and support those who may struggle.
• It an extremely useful safeguarding tool and we encourage every parish to use it.
• We expect PSO’s to have ownership and complete the dashboard however other church leaders can have viewing access.
• Please see the Safeguarding Dashboards Guide

Please see the Safeguarding Newsletters for further safeguarding information for parishes

For further useful safeguarding documents please go here