A brief summary of actions not covered in previous drop-ins can be read below:
- Safeguarding documents such as safety plans should be kept in the parish in a fireproof, locked cabinet for seventy years.
- There is no need to keep details of DBS certificates, references and training, but just keep a record that people have been safely recruited.
- People can give permissions to PSOs to share their training records on the Church of England training portal. Records can also be added to the Safeguarding Hubs.
- Parishes are invited to adopt the Diocese of London’s Whistleblowing policy.
- A copy of the original DBS certificate is required for an update service check to see whether there was anything on it as the update service check will only say if there was anything new. If a DBS certificate has been lost, a new DBS application should be made.
- The Children and Youth team area a good source for resources. When writing a policy such as for mentors praying with children, it is important to also have a clear job description and reference a social media policy. Working and Volunteering Safely with Young People is a helpful resource.
- The INEQE survey will be open for completion throughout June. Please do take 10-15mins to complete it. This is a very important way for the auditors to hear from as many people as possible in the diocese so please do circulate to all your parish circulation lists.
Some general updates were:
Dashboards
On 1st May 2025 some lights that are no longer needed, were removed from the parish dashboards relating to:
- Learning and Development
- Safer Recruitment and People Management
All dashboard users will see a message on their dashboard that explains this change.
The removal of these lights will affect progress scores, and it might result in some Level 1 parishes being promoted to Level 2.
If you would like to read a little more, you can do so on the safeguarding dashboards web pages here.
There are also some additional support pages on safeguarding training available.
Tedtalk about Safeguarding
There is a short Tedtalk video on YouTube about How whistleblowing can save lives, on the very important topic of the importance of professional curiosity.