On Tuesday 11 February, as SYNOD decide on how best to keep children and adults safe from sexual harm within the Church of England, our CEO, Mags Godderidge, will be standing outside with some of her colleagues from ACT on IICSA (“ick-sa”) in a show of solidarity with survivors.
We believe SYNOD must adopt ‘model four’ which essentially outsources safeguarding to an external and independent body which will:
• ensure high standards in safeguarding responses from start to finish with every complaint and issue;
• provide consistent responses;
• even out resources according to need; and
• provide much better data including the ability to track perpetrators between parishes and dioceses.
‘Model four’ is what Prof Alexis Jay recommended to the Church of England last year after she was asked to review their safeguarding processes.
Through our collective contact with survivors of faith-related abuse, both recent and non-recent, we repeatedly hear about the additional trauma and harm caused by inaction, cover-up and conscious decisions to stand by perpetrators whilst leaving survivors isolated, unsupported and in some cases, silenced by and ostracised from their faith community. That survivors have been excluded from SYNOD makes it all the more important for groups like ours to stand with them, amplify their concerns and make sure their voices are heard.