Many of you will know of my appointment, beginning this month, as the Church of England’s Lead Safeguarding Bishop.
As I wrote last week in the Church Times, “safeguarding is a fundamental expression of our vocation to serve the nation and to ensure that every person … can be confident that the Church is a place they will be safe, valued, and protected.” That conviction has grown out of years of ministry rooted in parish, archdeaconry and diocesan life, and from listening carefully to victims and survivors whose courage and honesty continue to challenge and instruct the Church. It has grown out of the ministry I have exercised among you and with you.
In writing in the Bulletin this week, I therefore want to say thank you to you — the people of the many communities of our diocese: parishes, chaplaincies, schools and fresh expressions — for the way you have shaped and formed me, and for the way I know you will continue to do so as I hold this new additional role over the coming three years.
As I said further in my article, safeguarding lies at the heart of our discipleship and our integrity as God’s people. It calls us to take power seriously, to tell the truth about failure, and to commit ourselves to action, accountability and change. For me, it is therefore vitally important that this is lived in ways rooted in local relationships — not least in understanding how national policy and practice are lived out in reality. This ministry, like all ministry, is collaborative and shared.
It will be good to explore this together at our Diocesan Safeguarding Conference on Saturday 9 May. You can read more about the day here and I look forward to seeing many of you there, sharing in the day and having the opportunity to express my thanks, as I do now, to all who are engaged in this vitally important work in so many different ways.
What you do is a visible expression of the offer of life in all its fullness that underpins our common life as the Church in this diocese: the life offered to all in Jesus Christ.
Thank you,
News Hub
Dear Bishop Robert,
I won’t be able to get to the Safeguarding Conference but I have 2 questions which I feel could do with some consideration at it:
1) Currently, as Tower Captain/Ringing Master/Belfry Master, my DBS clearance includes working with children, but not with vulnerable adults.Surely it should include both?
2) Pastoral Visitors who take the Eucharist to those who are housebound are not required to have *any* DBS clearance. Since these folk are, almost by definition, ‘vulnerable’ (mostly adults, but some may also have children), souldn’t these Visitors also need to have this clearance – particularly bearing in mind that they are likely to be asked by the housebound person to ‘pick up some eggs (or milk, or whatever) for me’ – which would require DBS clearance!