4C.7-4C.9: The Church Safety Plan

Guidance

All persons who may present a safeguarding risk to children, young people or vulnerable adults and who seek to join or continue to be part of a Church community, must have a Church Safety Plan in place.

The aim of a Church Safety Plan is to set clear boundaries which allow an individual who may present a safeguarding risk to join or continue to be part of a Church community safely. A Church Safety Plan is not meant to be punitive in nature. Church Safety Plans can be put in place to protect the victims, other members of the Church and the subject of the Plan. The intention behind setting certain boundaries is to acknowledge risks that have been identified and find proportionate ways to manage them.

Church Safety Plans are most effective when they are drafted in a collaborative manner. The Safeguarding Officer, statutory partners, the subject of the Plan and anyone involved in monitoring the Plan (e.g. churchwardens, incumbents, PCC members, PSOs) must be involved in drafting it and must sign it. Other relevant parties may also be invited to contribute to the development of the Plan, as needed. All parties involved should ensure that the requirements contained within the Plan are sufficient and proportionate for the management of the risks identified, as well as enforceable.

The drafting of the terms of the Plan should be informed by any risk assessments carried out and should include considerations of both risks and protective factors. When drafting a Plan, Safeguarding Officers and others are asked to consider what the risks within the Church context are, what is working well, and what can be done to further mitigate the identified risks. Importantly, the needs of victims and survivors must be central to any discussions about a Plan. Where relevant, restrictions that individuals are under from statutory partners should be reflected within any Plan that is put in place by the Church.  Consultation should take place with relevant statutory agencies, such as the police or probation service and other relevant parties, such as the parish priest, parish safeguarding officer and churchwardens.

Careful consideration should be given to situations in which the victim and / or their family attend the same church – their needs must be prioritised, and the situation must be managed with sensitivity. In certain cases, it may be necessary to encourage the subject of the Plan to attend a different service to ensure that the victim and / or their family can continue to be part of a Church community safely. Unless there are legal restrictions in place, this cannot be enforced through the Church Safety Plan, and therefore careful communication is required.

The types of requirements that may be included in a Church Safety Plan, include:

• not meeting children, young people and / or vulnerable adults alone on Church ground;
• stopping and avoiding any contact with the victim and their family;
• attending designated meetings only;
• sitting apart from children, young people and / or vulnerable adults during service;
• staying away from areas of the building where children, young people and / or vulnerable adults meet;
• only attending a house / home group where there are no children, young people and / or vulnerable adults;
• declining hospitality where there are children, young people and / or vulnerable adults present;
• never working or being part of a mixed-age group that includes children, young people and / or vulnerable adults;
• taking no official role in the Church or any role of responsibility where they are trusted by others1 .
• attending services at a particular time of day.

The Safeguarding Officer should monitor the overall compliance of an individual with the Plan, but compliance with specific requirements may be delegated to other relevant members of the Church, for instance, parish safeguarding officers, churchwardens or incumbents. Anyone involved in the monitoring of the Plan will need to meet with the subject regularly, maintain records of any contact and share those records with the Safeguarding Officer or relevant statutory agencies as needed. Ultimately, the risks that an individual may pose will be held by the relevant PCC or other governance board. In their roles as trustees, PCC members, Cathedral Chapter members and others have a responsibility to manage safeguarding risks within their organisation2  and should work closely with the Safeguarding Officer to ensure they are satisfied that safeguarding risks are appropriately managed.

Safeguarding Officers should ensure that all the key information regarding a Church Safety Plan, including a copy of each agreed version of the Plan, is saved on the relevant systems. This should include information about referrals, meetings held, decisions and outcomes, including the rationale for all of these.

Church Bodies will need to make it clear to those individuals who are subject to a Church Safety Plan what data will be processed and why, and where and for how long that data will be stored. Church Bodies can include this information in a Privacy Notice. Guidance on records management is available on the Church of England website, which includes specific guidance on the management of safeguarding records.

• 1Individuals included in a barred list or who have been convicted of certain offences are disqualified from holding specific offices in the Church, including membership of a PCC, deanery synod, diocesan synod or the General Synod, see the Church Representation Rules 2022 (as amended), Rule 68.
• 2Safeguarding and protecting people for charities and trustees - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)