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Child and Adult Safeguarding
Every day hundreds of children enter the Precincts of Canterbury Cathedral and become part of our community. Some of the children are permanent members of the Foundation of Canterbury Cathedral and others may just visit once in their childhood, but to every child, we have a duty of care and responsibility which is an extremely serious trust. There is, in our society, a great concern that children are cared for in the best possible way and the Church takes this responsibility as one of its most important concerns. We have a Management group, guidelines and policies in place to ensure we follow very closely the principles of the House of Bishops’ Child Protection Policy Document for the whole Church of England.
This duty of care, polices and guidelines also applies to any Vulnerable Adults who visit our Cathedral and our Policy states that:
- We are committed to respectful pastoral ministry to all adults within our Cathedral community.
- We are committed, within our Cathedral community to the safeguarding and protection of vulnerable people. This encompasses those who live, work, worship and visit here.
As part of our commitment to both child and adult protection, we carefully select and train paid and voluntary staff who might come into contact with these groups, using the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) if appropriate amongst other tools, to check their suitability.
See also:
- Our Safeguarding Policy (.docx)
- Safeguarding Key Contacts (.docx)
- Caring for Survivors of Abuse
- Survivor's Care Strategy 2022
- Domestic Abuse Policy and Procedures 2022
If you have any queries or concerns in this regard, please address these in the first instance to: [email protected].
Independent Safeguarding Audit
Commodore M J Atherton OBE MA FCMI FCILT RECEIVER GENERAL
8th April 2019
Safeguarding at Canterbury Cathedral
The Church of England has commissioned an independent audit of cathedral arrangements for keeping people safe from harm and abuse. These mandatory audits follow those carried out at diocesan level over the last two years. Canterbury Cathedral was pleased to volunteer as the first among all the cathedrals in England and Wales to be audited.
The Chapter believes that the audit allowed us to benefit from external scrutiny by measuring ourselves against current best practices in this vital area, demonstrating our own good practice, and then learning and developing as a result.
Leading improvement agency the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) is conducting the audits and visited the Cathedral for three days in November 2018. As well as looking at safeguarding files, policies and training, they met with safeguarding professionals, key members of the Chapter, including the Dean, and a wide variety of others from across the Cathedral community.
The Chapter would like to thank all the colleagues who gave their time, views and expertise to contribute to this in-depth process since at the heart of the audit was a series of conversations and focus groups with people in significant roles at the Cathedral relevant to safeguarding.
We are pleased that the report concludes that Canterbury Cathedral’s safeguarding is good, with many areas of strength. The auditors also pose a number of challenges.
Below you will find the conclusions, the full report and a document detailing questions, challenges and responses. This document will remain live and will be updated as actions are completed and changes embedded into our processes.
Anyone who is affected by any safeguarding issue can speak in confidence to the Cathedral Safeguarding Advisers in the first instance, who will ensure support is provided. (Contact details available here).
If you have any queries, comments or concerns regarding the report, our responses or safeguarding in general, please direct these to [email protected]
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