Parishes reminded to display Safeguarding details
Parishes are being reminded that they need to "clearly display information on safeguarding arrangements" and they are being asked to take a fresh look at information on their website.
Since October 2017 it has been the House of Bishops' policy position that parishes need to display information about their safeguarding arrangements to include a formal statement of adoption of the House of Bishops' ‘Promoting a Safer Church' safeguarding policy statement.
This should be signed on behalf of the PCC, with contact details of the PSO*, Churchwarden and any other local leaders; and information about where to get help with child and adult safeguarding issues, such as local authority contact details, domestic abuse and key helplines such as ChildLine (see Appendix 5 for Model ‘safeguarding in parishes-who’s who’).
In addition, the Parish Safeguarding Handbook, launched in July 2018 with a final version published at the end of the year, offers additional guidance that a parish should also ‘ensure that safeguarding arrangements are clearly visible on the front page of the parish website.'
It was left to local determination about what information to put on the website, while recognising that not all parishes have one. In this situation the parish may want to offer some information on the national 'A Church Near You' (ACNY) website which has a safeguarding tab on every page to lead users through to a map highlighting diocesan safeguarding details.
There is a link on the bottom of every page on 'A Church Near You' to the map linking to all diocesan safeguarding contacts. This also shows on every parish ACNY page.
Churches can add a page to their ACNY profile with their local Safeguarding details. A guide on how to add pages to can be found in the Editor Help Centre.
The Editor Help Centre also provides blogs on how to use ACNY more widely, including how to become an editor if your church does not yet use the site.
*Parish Safeguarding Officer
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