Child Protection

Following the decision of the Secretary of State for the Home Department to review the ISA/Vetting and Barring process which was due to be implemented in July 2010, we have been informed that that we should continue with the CRB process for those who under the House of Bishops’ Guidelines are required to have a disclosure.
 
The CRB national office has, however, issued some new forms, and these  will be available from Andrew Roberts at Church House  from 1 July . Andrew can also answer any questions you may have about the forms and about CRB.

Carol Clarke, the Safeguarding Officer for the Diocese of Coventry, will be providing training sessions for readers, parish safeguarding officers, all children and youth workers and leaders, worship/music group leaders and members, choir leaders and members, organists, Tower Captains, bell ringers, PCC members, church wardens and all others who are interested in having a basic knowledge of safeguarding children and young people in the Church

The session will cover the follow elements:

The importance of safeguarding in the Church
Brief history of safeguarding children
Types of abuse
Possible indicators
How we know a child is being abused
What to do if a disclosure is made or there are concerns
What not to do
How we can protect children and young people in the Church
CRB and ISA

The session last about two hours.
The first session in this diocese will be held at Emmanuel Church, Loughborough on 6 July 2010 at 7.30pm.

Further sessions will be arranged.
To book a place please contact
Carol Clarke Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser on 024 7652 1345
or e-mail
carol.clarke@covcofe.org

Also circulated is the programme for Coventry – which anyone from Leicester is welcome to attend.

Dates for Basic Safeguarding training May – July 2010

Wednesday lunchtime – Friday lunchtime, January 19th  – 21st , venue Burn Hall Hotel, York

The Conference will address matters relating to the safeguarding of children and adults, in both the Methodist Church and the Church of England. A small planning group is looking at the detailed programme. These details, plus registration information, will be available later.

Please note: at last year’s conference, we agreed to explore a south west venue. This has been unsuccessful due to cost, and we have been given a very good deal at Burn Hall. So apologies – we have started already searching the south west for 2012.

The Diocese has issued a new Policy and Safe Internet Use particularly relating to Children and Young People.

Policy on safe internet use

The Church of England and the Methodist Church are pleased to announce that Elizabeth Hall has been appointed to succeed  the  Reverend  Pearl Luxon as Safeguarding Adviser for our two churches.  

To ensure a smooth and efficient handover in this highly complex area of work Elizabeth will be joining us at the beginning of May and will work closely with Pearl until the end of August, when Pearl moves to her new role as an independent consultant. (We will be saying more about Pearl in due course). 

Elizabeth will be joining us from Cafcass (the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) where she is currently Head of Safeguarding.  Elizabeth has over twenty years of experience with family courts in various regions across England, both in Family Court Welfare and the Guardian ad litem service before becoming the Durham GALRO Panel manager.  When Cafcass was started in 2001, she was promoted to become the north east regional director. On moving to London in 2006 she transferred to her current role.  

We are delighted to welcome Elizabeth and  look forward to working with her in this critical area of work for both  our Churches.

14 faith leaders, including The Archbishop of Wales, the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds, the President of the Methodist Conference, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and the Leader of The Iona Community and the Moderator of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, have recently signalled, in an open letter, their concern over child immigration detention in relation to asylum seekers and have called for the government to end this policy, stating that ‘Our faith calls us to look particularly to the needs of the most vulnerable in our community.’ A petition in support of this call is available at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/NoChildDetention/. Please consider whether you are able to forward this to parishes. Many thanks, Mary McCormack