Safeguarding

The Church of England is committed to making the Church a safe place for children and young people, and to nurturing their growth and development. Oxford Diocese accepts the House of Bishops Policy on Child Protection and has taken steps to implement good practice locally.

Stephen Barber is Child Protection Adviser for the Diocese. His duties have three main strands: policy, training and consultancy. Policy work is based on encouraging the implementation of the House of Bishops policy document Protecting All God’s Children. The Diocesan handbook Protecting Children in the Diocese of Oxford supplements this by providing model policies, guidance, forms and other information.

Policy and Guidance
Church of England and Diocesan Child Protection Policy and other guidance notes

NEW

Safeguarding Newsletter - Autumn 2011

Recruiting New Members of the Children’s Work and Youth Work team

Protecting All God's Children (4th Edition)

Safeguarding Guidelines relating to Safer Recruitment

Promoting a Safe Church: policy for safeguarding adults

Responding to Domestic Abuse: guidelines for those with pastoral responsibility

Helpful Forms
Adapt these fo use in your own parish

Criminal Records Bureau Disclosures

Consultancy is available on any aspect of child protection. Stephen needs to know about issues or incidents which may need referral to the statutory agencies. He is also involved with making safe arrangements for the management of known sex offenders.

Training is available. Please see the News and Training page.

Stephen does not personally deal with Criminal Records Bureau Disclosures applications but links with appropriate diocesan staff. For parish issues the most appropriate contact is usually Ruth Reavley, Countersignatory for volunteers. Links are also maintained with a range of statutory and voluntary organizations in the field. National developments are checked for relevance to child protection work in the diocese.

How parishes obtain CRB Disclosures

How parishes obtain CRB Disclosures for volunteer children’s and youth workers

Parishes used the Diocesan CRB Registered Body to obtain Disclosures for volunteer and paid youth and children’s workers until the end of December 2010. The Diocese has now made an agreement with the Churches Agency for Safeguarding (CAS) that parishes use their services, and recommends that parishes make use of this arrangement.

More detail about this change can be found on the documentCriminal Records Bureau Parish Administration Changes, below.

Churches’ Agency for Safeguarding

The Churches’ Agency for Safeguarding (www.churchsafe.org.uk) is an umbrella body set up by Christian Denominations and organizations (including the Methodist Church of Great Britain, the Baptist Union and the United Reformed Church) to provide CRB Disclosure checks for the employees and volunteers of its full member groups and its associate member groups. The Diocese of Oxford has become an Associate member.

Continuing Diocesan CRB services

The Diocese will continue to work directly with clergy, ordinands, LLMs, paid youth workers and Diocesan staff employees in obtaining CRB Disclosures.

Parishes with paid youth workers should obtain CRB application forms from the Diocesan Youth Adviser, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , when new appointments are made or renewal of CRB is needed. Ian will not be able to countersign CAS application forms.

LLMs will be approached by the Warden of LLMs, the This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , to initiate CRB matters. Where parish verifiers are asked to verify an LLM ‘s identity for CRB purposes, they should expect the CRB form and identity checklist to from the Diocese (and not from CAS). The LLM concerned will send the paperwork to the Diocesan LLM Adviser for countersignature.

CRB forms for clergy continue to be administered by the Area Bishops’ offices. Ordinands’ forms are handled by the This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

For further information, please contact

Ruth Reavley
Diocesan CRB Administrator
Diocesan Church House
North Hinksey Lane
Oxford OX2 0NB
01865 208297
Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Stephen Barber
Diocesan Safeguarding Children Adviser
Diocesan Church House
North Hinksey Lane
Oxford OX2 0NB
01865 208290
Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Criminal Records Bureau Disclosures

12 Online Safety Commandments

12 points to keep you safe online...

Communicating Electronically

This concerns the use of mobile phones, email, SMS (text) messages, MSN Messenger and other electronic communication methods.

Safeguarding and CRB