Safeguarding in the Hermitage Team of Churches

All seven churches within the Hermitage Team Ministry play a vital role in the lives of many children, young people and adults. 

Because of this, our churches have people who contribute within our places of worship, events and groups and they each have a role to play in keeping people safe.  They have a duty to respond effectively and compassionately when someone comes forward to share any concerns or issues.

They have a duty of care to follow through with anything disclosed to them to the appropriate person and each person linked to children, young people. adults and vunerable people have received Diocesean Safeguarding Training on many levels that assist them with this.

Promoting a Safer Church

Each church displays in their entrance porch or noticeboard a 'Promoting a Safer Church' which details the main contacts for that church who have been trained to deal with any issues that are brought to them.  The poster looks like this:

Have a look out for it next time you visit and familarise yourselves with the contact details.  They are here for you if you need them or know of someone who might.

Who's Who in the Team - Safeguarding

As we have seven churches in our team, we have a number of different people all trained to offer support in each church.  Below you can download a PDF file for each church so you can easily find out who's who at that specific church.  Just click on the church name below and the PDF will download for you to view.  (you can get a free PDF view to install on your computer by clicking here: https://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/)

St Marks - Cold Ash

St Mary and St Nicholas - Compton

St Marys - East Ilsley

St Frideswide - Frilsham

St Mary the Virgin - Hampstead Norreys

Holy Trinity - Hermitage

St Peter and St Paul - Yattendon

Our Safeguarding Lead

We currently have a vacancy for a Safeguarding Lead.  If you have a urgent concern, please contact the Diocesan Safeguarding Officer on 01865 208290.

Policies

All of our churches, on an annual basis agree and sign to adopt a Parish Safeguarding Policy.  This is signed at a Parochial Church Council meeting and displayed in the church. 

We are committed to:

    • The care, nurture of, and respectful pastoral ministry with, all children and all adults
    • The safeguarding and protection of all children, young people and adults when they are vulnerable
    • The establishing of safe, caring communities which provide a loving environment where there is a culture of ‘informed vigilance’ as to the dangers of abuse.
    • We will carefully select and train all those with any responsibility within the Church, in line with safer recruitment principles, including the use of Disclosure and Barring Service criminal records checks.
    • We will respond without delay to every complaint made which suggests that an adult, child or young person may have been harmed, co-operating with the police and local authority in any investigation and we will have a clear reporting procedure in place.
    • We will seek to work with anyone who has suffered abuse (in childhood or within the home, etc) developing with him or her appropriate ministry of informed pastoral care.
    • We will seek to challenge any abuse of power, especially by anyone in a position of trust.
    • We will seek to offer pastoral care and support, including supervision and referral to the proper authorities, to any member of our church community known to have offended against a child, young person or vulnerable adult.
    • In all these principles we will follow statute, guidance and recognised good practice.
    • We will advise the Diocese which Registered Body we use to process applications for Disclosure and Barring Service criminal records checks.
    • We will advise the Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser if we receive a Disclosure which is ‘blemished’ or ‘positive’.
    • We will review this policy annually, check that our policies are up to date, and supply a copy of the updated policy statement to the Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser.

We also comply to the Safer Recruitment Policy and this is also signed and a copy is placed in each church.

The Parish Safeguarding Policy Document can be viewed here.