As advised over recent years, every parish website in the Church of England is required to include a prominent link on its homepage to essential safeguarding information.
Parishes not complying are open to challenge by individuals or groups who may be able to initiate action against the incumbent under the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) - such cases have been brought successfully.
Some parishes in other dioceses whose web/ACNY sites still don't comply have been subjected to quite distressing and threatening calls from survivor(s).
Please can you review your parish's compliance:
- The Church of England's House of Bishops issued guidance six years ago that's embodied in the Parish Safeguarding Handbook:
- "In terms of safeguarding, the incumbent and the PCC will... Ensure that safeguarding arrangements are clearly visible on the front page of the parish website." Section 1 pg 2
- "Some parishes do not have their own website. In this situation, the parish may want to offer some information on the A Church Near You website." Note 9 pg 56
by ensuring:
- Every Parish website should include a clear link on its homepage, leading to a brief statement about its safeguarding policies and contact details for its incumbent and Parish Safeguarding Officer. There is no need to publish the parish safeguarding policy in full, although this is fine if a PCC wishes to do so.
- Every parish has its own page on the Church of England's national searchable website, 'A Church Near You' (ACNY), at www.achurchnearyou.com. Every incumbent or priest-in-charge is, by default, administrator of their parish ACNY page, and able to allocate four other logins to parishioners (e.g. the person who runs their website) to help run it, or to run it on the parish's behalf. While every ACNY page has basic safeguarding links built in, these only direct the user to diocesan safeguarding contacts. It is better practice to create a safeguarding tab on your ACNY page, leading to a brief statement about its safeguarding policies and contact details for its incumbent and Parish Safeguarding Officer. Experienced ACNY editors can find help to do this in the ACNY Editor Help Centre.
- If your parish's principal web presence is on social media (such as Facebook) you should if possible include in your 'about' information a basic statement about your safeguarding policies and contact details for your incumbent and Parish Safeguarding Officer.
The recommended statement to put on your web and ACNY home pages is:
"(Name of Church) is committed to Safeguarding and has adopted the National and Diocesan Safeguarding Policies. Our Safeguarding Coordinator is (Name of Safeguarding Coordiantor) and can be contacted on (Enter a contact telephone number)."
You also need to ensure that the policies have actually been ratified and adopted by the PCC and that this is recorded in meeting minutes.