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Is Your Safeguarding Information Accessible on Your Church Website?

02 July 2019 11:04

Safeguarding is understandably a highly important subject for any church, and should be a priority on any church website. And with the final public hearing on Anglican child sex abuse being conducted by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) this week, there has never been a more prevalent time for churches to ensure that all information relating to safeguarding is easy to access on their website.

What is Safeguarding?

The Care Quality Commission defines safeguarding as protecting people's health, wellbeing and human rights, and enabling them to live free from harm, abuse and neglect.

For children safeguarding includes protecting them from maltreatment or things that might affect their health or development. For vulnerable adults its about protecting rights to be safe, free from abuse and neglect.

Safeguarding is a legal requirement, and every church will hopefully have a safeguarding policy that clearly defines how they will manage risks, train staff and volunteers, respond to complaints, and follow legislation and guidance. There should also be a named safeguarding officer who can be easily contacted.

How can Safeguarding Information be accessed on a Church's website?

One of the things that has been raised by Anglican survivors of abuse is the lack of visibility of safeguarding arrangements on churches' websites. Therefore churches must take seriously the need for a user-friendly website that is mobile friendly. After all the majority of online searches are undertaken on phones or tablets so if your church website is unresponsive your safeguarding arrangements might not be easy to access.

So firstly we would recommend that your church website is responsive i.e. works on mobile devices.

Once you have a mobile-friendly church website, we suggest you create a dedicated safeguarding page including:

ChristChurch Fulham, one of our Church Pages websites, have a really good example of a Safeguarding page here.

If you do not have a safeguarding policy then why not contact your denomination's head office and ask for help. Most denominations have issued guidelines on safeguarding and will be more than happy to help. If you are an independent church that is not associated with anyone then we would recommend that you follow the guidelines provided by The Charity Commission for charities and trustees. These are very comprehensive and will help you.

Once you have created your Safeguarding Policy would then recommend that you link to your Safeguarding page by:

1. Creating a link in the main navigation and in the footer.

This link will take the web visitor straight to your arrangements for Safeguarding and will give relevant information on who is to be contacted and how.

ChirstChurch Fulham have done this highly successfully and if you'd like help with creating this type of link in your website please contact us.

2. Creating a link in the main navigation and footer, and providing separate information on the home page.

This option enables a web visitor to access information on who to contact immediately, whilst providing more information on the church's arrangements for Safeguarding.

Holy Trinity Guernsey has an excellent example of how this can be done here. If you'd like help with adding in information and links please contact us.

Other things to consider

Photography

When you are setting up a church website you will want to ensure that there are plenty of images of your congregation. It's one of the things that really helps to encourage people to come to your church. However, as you will be aware there may be safeguarding issues with the people that you photograph, so we'd recommend that your photographer is made aware of any sensitive issues. Taking photographs sensitively is a real art and if you'd like more advice on this please read our blog Photos in Church.

Setting a culture of respect and safety

According to the Church Times IICSA have received evidence of more than 1000 safeguarding concerns relating to the C of E in 2015, 53% of which related to sexual abuse. How sad it is that the one place that should be safe is not always the case. However, I still believe that the local church is has the answer to this nation's problems, we just need to be aware of issues.

As Christians we always want to think the best of people, particularly those in authority. However, as we are now seeing the church has historically been a place that can attract those people who wish to cause harm to others.

Does that mean that the church shouldn't welcome the lost and broken? I don't think so, but I do think that we have to be wise and aware, so that the culture of the church reflects the Safeguarding Policy.

Always as Christians we should try to be loving and welcoming, but in loving our neighbours as ourselves we must ensure that everyone who enters our churches is made to feel safe and cared for in a non-exploitive way, and those that may be a risk to others are equally cared for in an environment where they can experience love, healing, and transformation.

Can we help your church website?

If you'd like any help with making your church website responsive and has your safeguarding arrangements clearly displayed please contact us.


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