by a member of the Anglican Survivors Group
I write this small piece as a survivor of a clergy sexual abuse ring. I was a core participant in the Anglican IICSA inquiry and it took me over 30 years of fighting to get my abusers jailed.
One of the recurring memories of the abuse was desperately trying to report it and not being heard. The lack of ability to effectively report meant the abuse continued for many years.
The church has a long history of covering up abuse and allowing it to continue in order to protect the reputation of the church. Many instances were revealed publicly at IICSA, yet still to this day no one has been disciplined or sacked for their part in allowing our abuse to continue.
It was for this reason that many years ago a number of survivors, among them myself, approached the then-new head of the National Safeguarding Team, expressing how important it is for safeguarding to be clearly visible both on parish websites and in church buildings. When the Parish Safeguarding Handbook was published it included on p.2 the need to CLEARLY display on the FRONT page of parish websites the parish’s safeguarding arrangements.
The reason for it to be on the front page was so that the search engines would pick it up. Research from the NSPCC and evidence given to IICSA both confirm that many teenagers (and younger) have access to mobile phones and the first place they look for information is via search engines.
If the parish website just has a small hidden link to a document that only gives your policy, with no contact numbers, then you have missed the entire point.
Sadly, even to this day many parishes have nothing on their front pages, and many still have nothing at all.
Several years ago now, the same group of survivors started trawling through some 12000 websites. We found compliance with this basic requirement to be under 50%. We emailed and telephoned many parishes, most of whom weren’t even aware of the requirement. Very slowly, compliance started rising. But some parishes just refused.
Some used the “due consideration” loophole where they said they had given safeguarding requirements due consideration and decided not to do it. That led to a further campaign by survivors to close this loophole.
Eventually, after much chasing, we were left with just over 600 parishes against whom we issued CDMs. This was the wake-up call many needed. We agreed to withdraw the CDMs if the parish became compliant. Many however simply put up a copy of their policy. hidden on page 28!
Some parishes have the clergy as the Parish Safeguarding Officer or contact, which is totally unacceptable. Some churches share a safeguarding officer with other churches and at a parish level the officer is never present at church.
Sadly, there are some very evil people out there, including clergy, who will do the unthinkable. A successful DBS check may just mean that a person has not yet been caught. A DBS check doesn’t stop abuse: but good Safeguarding practice may. And one of the keys to that is that people are able to report things as soon as anything inappropriate happens.
Posters need to be clearly visible to all. They need to be understood by a child. They need to be at a height where children can read them.
The campaign led to some excellent diocesan responses. The Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser at Salisbury came up with a simple poster that simply said:
“Is someone hurting you?”
“WE CARE. Please call 01234 567890”
Safeguarding is NOT about an admin exercise. It’s not about traffic lights on a Diocesan dashboard. It’s about putting yourself in the shoes of a vulnerable child or adult.
We ask, as survivors ourselves, one simple question. If YOU were 10 years old and trying to report abuse, could you?
Any thoughts?